Life at Kingdom High
by FangedWriter
Summary: A collection of pairings Yaoi in a high school setting from Kingdom Hearts. Chapter Twelve Snowy Schemes
1. Axel has floating toilets

Hi everyone! This was just an idea I had, based on real life events, that I had to write down or it was never going to leave me alone! lol. Okay, this is just planned to be a collection of school based pairings and such.

Chapter One is based off of my experience in CADD class. CADD, for those that don't know, is a computer program that focuses on building houses. It was fun and we goofed off with it, because none of us really worked and just talked the whole time while we played with the buttons. Now, the whole toilet part did happen to me. I won't say too much until the end about it though...

Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, it would be cool fan grin, but I really don't. I don't own CADD either.

For once twelfth period CADD class was quiet. Everyone was actually working on their houses, due mainly to the threat by Mr. Ansem that he would make the project due the next day. Mr. Ansem was down the hall talking to Mr. Sephiroth, the teacher next door, when the silence was broken by a yell.

"Holy crap! My toilet's floating!"

Laughter erupted in the class. Several students abandoned their own projects to lean in their chairs to try and see the one in question, happy for the distraction from the work.

Roxas was one of them. He looked over at the computer beside him. He simply stared at it for a couple seconds before he was laughing too.

"Oh, shut up, Roxas. How am I supposed to fix this?"

"Oh, come on, Axel! It's funny!"

"No, it isn't! Why is my toilet floating?" Axel yelled.

"Axel, you're hopeless,'' another student stated coolly, coming from another row to stand behind Axel.

Axel crossed his arms, sighing. He rested his head on the back of his seat, using it as a way to see who stood behind him. He glared at the boy with narrowed green eyes.

"Fix it or walk away, Riku,'' Axel growled.

"Relax, I'll fix it. Geez."

"Good."

"Move over, give me the chair, something,'' Riku said.

Axel grinned mischievously. Roxas and Leon were the only two close enough to Axel to see it, and they prepared themselves for whatever could be coming. Riku, focused on the floating toilet and wondering how the heck he actually could fix it, missed the crucial sign of Axel's smile.

Suddenly, Riku found himself in Axel's lap, the teen's arms around his waist.

"Hey!" Riku shouted, provoking laughter from the class, which naturally hadn't returned to their work.

Axel laughed.

"There, you've got a seat. Now fix it."

"You owe me big for this,'' Riku muttered.

Riku stared intensely at the screen for a second, smirking inside at the fact that Axel had even gotten into this mess. His concentration was broken quickly by Sora leaning over the computer from the row in front of them, Riku's own row.

"Hey, Riku,'' he began, his voice set in a teasing tone.

"What, Sora?" Riku sighed.

"What are you going to do if Mr. Ansem comes back in?"

Riku's eyes widened, horrified. He turned quickly in Axel's lap to look at him.

"What am I supposed to do if he comes back in? Let me up!"

Axel held Riku firmly when he tried to get out of his lap.

"Think about it, the longer you take, the more of a chance he'll come in during this."

Riku glared at Axel, but he only smiled.

"Oh, you owe me really big for this,'' Riku muttered, returning his attention to the floating toilet.

After a minute of muttering particular choice words, Riku had the toilet firmly placed on the floor of Axel's house.

"There, it's fixed, let me up!"

And that was when the classroom door opened. Everyone heard the sound and turned around in their seats, Riku with terrified eyes.

It was Demyx coming back from the bathroom. Turning around from closing the door, he froze, taking in the situation. Silence for what seemed like an eternity followed.

Then Demyx roared out with laughter, which only encouraged the rest of the class to go at it again.

"Let me up, Axel, or you're going to die today,'' Riku said quietly, he felt mentally exhausted from the fear that Demyx had been the teacher.

"Oh, alright,'' Axel sighed, loosening his grip so Riku could stand, though not so that he could go yet. "One more thing though."

"What?" Riku groaned.

Axel reached up with one gloved hand, caught Riku by the jaw, and brought him down into a kiss.

"Thanks."

A blush raced to Riku's naturally pale cheeks as his mind became a jumbled mess.

Luckily for him, he was saved the task of how to react. Easily heard through the silence of the still watching class was the sound of Mr. Ansem's shoes and Mr. Sephiroth's boots. Riku had just enough time to run back to his seat beside Sora before the door opened and both teachers walked in.

The classroom was just simply out of quiet moments. It had returned back to its normal talkative self, most of them talking in low voices about Axel and Riku.

Riku turned his attention back to his own house. That was when he discovered that his was missing a roof altogether, which was a part of the house that was heck to do right.

Indulging in that task, happy for a distraction from the heat still across his face, he zoned out the classroom around him.

His attention came whiplashed back when he heard Demyx singing in a low voice at his right.

"Axel and Riku sitting in a chair. K-I-"

Riku glared, the blush returning. He reached over and effectively made sure Demyx's toilet was floating.

So, what do you think? Please let me know! This is my first fanfic and input would be much appreciated.

The whole toilet part comes from my own experience, like I said. In that program, it was entirely possible for your toilet to end up floating if you didn't do it just right. Trust me. I spent a half hour trying to get mine to touch the ground again, along with the sink, the counters, and a good chunk of other things.

P.S. tell me if there are any more typos. LarsJr found mine, and thanks goes to her, and thanks goes to FuN SiZeD for telling me how to fix it!


	2. Demyx talks in his sleep

**New chapter! Yay! Thanks goes to my readers and reviewers! I got back to this sooner because of them. The following chapter is a separate story from chapter one. That said, hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Bruce Almighty, The Lone Ranger, or the Clapper, or the Dark Tower series, or Red Bull. Wow, that's quite a list. In case I missed where anything came from, I don't own anything except plot line. Well, hopefully it's all covered!**

Study hall.

Zexion had looked forward to it all day. Silence and free time to do want he wanted. It had sounded so good. And having it at the end of the day had seemed sort of therapeutic in a way.

Of course, it had quickly become the exact opposite.

Zexion tried to focus on the book in front of him, one of the Dark Tower series, but he wasn't succeeding at all. After all, it was hard when you had who he had around him.

For starters, there was Demyx sleeping beside him and snoring on his left. On his right was Axel.

Axel didn't have the attention span to sit down with a book, or the ability to remain quiet long enough to do so. The red head had very recently discovered exactly what Red Bull did to somebody. He was incredibly awake and also incredibly bored. Luckily for Zexion, Axel had decided to take his boredom out on someone else. Directly in front of Axel was the poor teen he had decided to focus on.. Zexion felt sorry for Riku. Riku looked like he was going to reach back and throttle Axel if he didn't shut up and stop poking him.

"AwcomeonRiku!"

"Gad, you're worse than when you were drunk last week! Who gave you that Red Bull anyway?"

Zexion himself knew who had. But he knew better than to say anything. Axel wasn't focusing on him now, he had probably forgotten about him altogether, and saying something could possibly redirect his attention. That was basically suicide when Axel got into any state like this.

Zexion tried again to focus on the Dark Tower. It was a good series and he loved it, but he just couldn't get off the page he had been on all study hall.

"It was you?" Zexion heard Riku exclaim.

Zexion looked up, unable to stop himself.

Sora, who sat in front of him, was leaning back with a huge grin on his face. Zexion could see him trying not to laugh.

"Yeahitwashim!Hegaveittomeandtoldmenottotellyouitwashim!Anditissoawesome!Everythingiskindofprettytoo!Rikuhaveyouever-"

Zexion himself was now restraining laughter. Leon, who sat on the other side of Axel, had raeched over and clamped Axel's mouth shut. Leon's blue eyes looked like ice.

"Shut up. You're driving me insane."

Riku started laughing, forgetting all about how he wanted to kill Sora. Riku, and Zexion, had noticed Leon twitching the whole time from Axel's endless chatter that ran at nintety miles an hour.

"Ow!" Leon shouted, jerking his hand back.

Zexion, who didn't get tangled up in the yelling that followed between the four boys, was the one to see Cid, that study hall teacher, making his way to them.

"You'retheonethat-"

"No, no, no! I didn't do anything like this to you!" Leon argued.

And the rest of them noticed Cid standing beside Leon, his arms crossed. Leon stopped in mid yell at Axel. Riku had been yelling at Sora for giving Axel Red Bull in the first place when he halted with his mouth opened.

"What happened here, boys?"

The four who had the attention of Cid remained quiet and just stared, even Axel.

And that was the moment, silent as it was in that spot, when Demyx talked in his sleep.

"I do the cha-cha like a sissy girl. I lik-a do da cha-cha."

Everyone, including quiet Zexion, burst out laughing. Axel was giggling, and it was funny to hear him laugh when he was so hyper, which only made everyone laugh harder. Sora was laughing so hard he was crying. Riku was no longer visible to Zexion, the boy had actually fallen out of his chair. Leon was trying not to laugh, but was losing.

Only Cid refrained from laughing, and it was a close contest for him as it was.

After a minute that took for everyone to gain control of themselves again, as best they could anyway, Cid decided to return to business.

"What happened here, boys?" Cid asked, trying to banish the image of Demyx doing the cha-cha from his mind. "What was the screaming for?"

"Idon'tknowMr.Cid.Leonstartedscreamingatmefornoreason,'' Axel said.

Axel was still laughing some and still very hyper, the combination sent everyone into hysterics again, everybody except Cid and poor Leon, who was twitching again.

"What did he say?"

"Not sure,'' Riku answered. "He's been like this all of study hall, because a certain _someone _gave him a _certain _drink."

"RedBullgivesyouwings!"

Cid took one look at Axel and shook his head, wishing silently that he hadn't come over to this side of the room at all.

"What was all the screaming about?" Axel opened his mouth to answer, but once he did Cid cut him off. "Not you."

"He bit me,'' Leon told him, lifting a hand that did indeed have bite marks visible.

"Why did you bite him?" Cid demanded, a confused look on his face.

"Hehadhishandonmymouthand-"

"Never mind,'' he sighed. "Leon, come on. You better get that looked at. The kid looks like he has rabies. You too, Axel. The office is going to want you on this one."

Leon and Axel stood up. Leon had made it a step before Axel poked him square in the back of the head.

"Axel, you better be happy there's a teacher in front of us,'' Leon said over his shoulder.

"AreyouscaredLeon?YouknowI'mstrongerdon'tyou?"

"Shut up, kid,'' Cid said. "Why is he like that anyway?"

"Like I said, a certain _someone _gave him a _certain_ drink,'' Riku repeated, casting a side glance at Sora. "Red Bull to be specific."

"You two might as well come too. The office'll want somebody other than Axel there. Leon's gotta see the nurse before anything else."

Riku sighed and stood up, giving Sora another side glance, to which the boy responded by grinning widely.

Zexion watched the four boys walk away. Cid stood in the middle of the group, wishing that he had never bothered agreeing to take one of the study halls to watch over.

"HI HO SILVER AWAAAAAAAY!"

Zexion jumped. He had forgotten Demyx was there at all. Looking down, he discovered that the blond was as sound asleep as ever. Sighing and looking at him closer, Zexion thought he looked peaceful in his sleep. He looked for a couple seconds longer, smiling a little.

He yanked his eyes away, scolding himself. He buried his eyes in the Dark Tower. He found that he still couldn't focus though. He had thought when he saw the four walking away that he would be able to.

But he hadn't remembered when they were walking away that Demyx was still there. Sure, he wasn't snoring anymore and he wasn't awake singing at the top of his lungs or putting that little whine in his voice, that Zexion would never admit aloud that it was adorable. But he was still Demyx.

After a minute of struggling with his thoughts and trying to convince himself that this didn't bother him at all, that concentration was broken by none other than the teen causing all of it.

"Hey, you little anal dwelling butt monkey."

Zexion looked at Demyx in shock. Butt monkey? After a second of staring he shook his head. He didn't want to know what Demyx could be dreaming of that had to do with anal dwelling butt monkeys.

While his thoughts remained perfectly tangled for another five minutes or so, of which Demyx didn't make a sound, Riku returned. He didn't look considerably happy.

"Cid sent me back to get Axel's stuff. They're calling his parents. Nobody can follow what he's saying and they don't trust him on the bus."

"There's only twenty minutes left,'' Zexion argued.

"I know,'' Riku responded, bending down to pick up Axel's black bag. "I prefer him drunk. He walked around for a half hour convinced he was a turkey, but he didn't cause this much trouble."

"A turkey?"

"Yeah. He spent the half hour after that extremely loopy with his garbage can on his head. Be glad you weren't there, Zexion,'' Riku told him, starting back up the auditorium aisle.

And Zexion was faced with the same problem again. He was alone with Demyx.

Demyx who was nice, outgoing, cute-

"Clap on. Clap off. Clap on, clap off. The clapper!"

-insane, Zexion finished in his head.

He peered down at Demyx, the book in his lap completely forgotten.

Did being alone with Demyx ever bother him before? He couldn't say. Had he ever actually been alone with him before? He didn't think he had.

And when you're alone with someone the first time, you notice all sort of things, especially when that person is asleep.

Like Zexion had always loved Demyx.

Scolding himself for the thought that he could actually love Demyx, Zexion sank deep in thought. Zexion was like that. Thinking things out until he couldn't anymore was just something he did.

His concentration was broken by the teen at the center of it, yet again.

"Zexion, I love you."

Zexion's head snapped over, even faster than he had in reaction to the butt monkey. Zexion was in shock. Unwilling to believe that he had just heard that, he checked to see if the blond was still really asleep, suspecting that he might be messing with him. But Demyx was still sound asleep. Could Zexion have heard wrong? No, he didn't think so. Zexion had never heard anything wrong before.

And for once in Zexion's life, he did something without thinking about it till he couldn't anymore. He bent down and kissed the sleeping, innocent looking Demyx.

Demyx woke out of the strangest dreams in his life and came into an even more bizarre reality. He woke to someone kissing him. As if that wasn't bizarre enough, he could hear what sounded like Riku and Leon arguing, first further away and then closer.

"Sora, don't you ever give Axel Red Bull again! I will ring your neck!"

This was when Demyx realized Sora wasn't far. He could hear him laugh in response to Riku's yell.

"You'll ring his neck? No, if anybody will it'll be me! I'm the one with teeth marks because of it!"

And then the person kissing him pulled away and Demyx got to see who it was.

His mind froze in shock.

Zexion.

Before Demyx could react, or Zexion, who had just realized what he actually did, the seats around them were filling again. Leon, Riku, and Sora were sitting back down.

"Hey, look who's awake. Mr. Cha-cha."

Sora and Riku howled in laughter, interesting images coming to their minds. Leon, who had said it, was now feeling a little better, and was grinning. Zexion was still in deep shock a bit and didn't laugh, but he caught the look of confusion on Demyx's face while no one else did.

"You talk in your sleep,'' Zexion explained.

For a second Demyx's face remained the same, and the next it was a deep shade of red as he remembered the last thing he had been dreaming about. Sora, Riku, and Leon took it as just complete embarrassment from cha-cha, but Zexion knew different.

"Did I-" Demyx began, and Zexion nodded. "Is that why you-" Zexion nodded again.

Again the other three boys missed the real meaning behind the question, the image of Demyx doing the cha-cha stubbornly stuck in their minds.

Zexion, making sure that Demyx's eyes were on him, mouth: I love you, too, Demyx.

Demyx blushed a shade deeper.

Maybe study hall wouldn't be so bad, Zexion thought. Sure, he'd have to deal with Sora, Riku, and Axel, who were never a good mix together. And then there was Leon, who you wanted to make sure you didn't tick off. He'd probably have to deal with another Red Bull incident. If not, Sora would probably get the man chocolate, which couldn't be much better.

Yeah, Zexion would want to kill most of the people sitting around him, but it was worth it.

Demyx talks in his sleep.

**Wow, that turned out longer than I meant it to. I just ought to say that the quotes that Demyx was saying in his sleep, except the part with Zexion, came from a friend of mine, LarsJr. I was in a chat room with her and asked her to give me random phrases. And while I'm sitting here typing this note, she still doesn't know what I did with them. lol. I also got the Red Bull from her too. Well, let me know what you think! Is this one better than the last one? It ended up different, or I think it did. Any votes for next pairing is welcome too. R&R please! **


	3. One Big Distraction Revisted

Chapter Three- One Big Distraction (Rewritten)

**Okay, here we go again. I rewrote it to make it longer and to include Oktoberfest. It was bugging me. The Faded Guardian wanted to see the Oktoberfest part and so did I, actually.**

**Disclaimer: Me still no ownie**

Leon wanted to tell Cloud the truth. He really did. The problem was that it was never easy to tell someone you liked them.

Leon had promised himself he'd tell Cloud today. After all, what was the worst that could happen if Cloud rejected him the day before a three day weekend? Leon knew he wouldn't see Cloud over the weekend, so things would have time to rest before they had to look at each other again.

Pulling himself out of thoughts about Cloud, Leon realized he had spun the lock a little too far and missed the last number. He sighed, beginning the whole process again.

Once he succeeded in getting the numbers right, he had to fight against his locker. It became quickly necessary to actually place a foot against the locker on his left as he pulled. He knew the stupid thing had come undone, but it wasn't coming out, and that was the problem.

"Leon. Stop. Hold on. Fine."

Riku, standing at his locker next to Leon's, planted a well placed kick against the bottom of the door.

The door swung open instantly and Leon lost his footing. People let out a yell at the sudden detour they had to take to avoid Leon on the floor. Laying there, Leon groaned. This day was not going as easily as he had planned. And the hardest part was yet to come.

Actually, the hardest part of it all was now standing above him with an amused grin on his face.

"You know there are easier ways to look at the ceiling, Leon,'' Cloud said, holding a hand out to help Leon up.

Leon wanted to laugh aloud, and yet strangle Cloud at the same time. He guessed, in a way, that was part of liking someone. You could have the urge to kill them, yet you knew you'd never lay a hand on them.

"Ha ha, Cloud."

Leon turned back to his locker, bending over to get the books off the bottom. Cloud stood beside him, looking in the locker, a look of amazement on his face.

"Wow, Leon, don't you think you should clean that? I bet you if I looked I could find a moldy sandwich or something."

"No, there's nothing that bad in there, geez."

"That bad? What do you have in there that is bad? Do I even want to know?"

Oh, yes, Cloud was in a bit of a giddy mood, Leon could tell. Must be the three day weekend. Three day weekends simply were awesome.

"Come on, let's get going,'' Leon said, shutting his locker. "We don't want to get caught up in hall traffic and miss the bus."

Walking side by side with Cloud, Leon knew he ought to be telling him the truth now. Before they got outside, and while he still had half the nerve to.

But yet he knew it'd be better to do it outside, where less people would hear this confession. He didn't want it all over school Monday either. Yeah, outside was better.

He was stalling, and he knew it. Somehow TV made confessing look so much easier.

The stairwell proved to be as much chaos as it normally was. The turns in that hallway was tight and you could never see if anybody was on the other side. Leon considered it a safety hazard, and most people agreed with him, including Cloud, which always made him feel happy.

The lobby of the school was a mess of bodies, as usual. Every couple steps Leon would take a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure Cloud was still behind him. He knew from past experience that you really could lose someone in crowds of people like this.

Once outside and into more open area, the two fell into even pace with each other and were side by side. Leon was aware that he had to tell Cloud before they reached his bus, near the back of the line of buses at the sidewalk.

Here we go, Leon thought. Just say it.

"Cloud, I-"

Leon found himself cut off by a scream from the duo walking ahead of them.

"Evil monkeys are taking over the world!"

Leon glared at Axel, only slightly questioning the evil monkeys. He was too angry to really think about evil primates taking over the world.

He had opened his mouth, ready to say something about it, but was cut off yet again.

"And the evil masks too!"

Leon clenched his fists, because he knew if he didn't he'd strangle both Axel and Roxas. He was strained a bit about the whole confession thing, he didn't need help from two hyper teens shouting about the world being taken over.

"You were saying something?" Cloud asked.

"Yeah, I'm going to kill them,'' Leon muttered, still staring the duo.

"Have they been like this all day?"

"Doubt it. Probably only after the last bell rang."

Cloud nodded, understanding the reasoning.

"Cloud, I-"

"Yeah, the evil masks! And the crab people!"

"I forgot about the crab people!" Roxas shouted. "They're coming too!"

"Do you have any idea what they're talking about?" Cloud asked.

"No, but if it's coming from them, most people won't."

Cloud laughed and it made Leon smile. He liked that laugh.

And it also reminded him yet again of what he ought to be doing. He had to ignore Axel and Roxas being insane. The end of the line of buses was coming quickly and he had to say it today, before he had the three day weekend to convince himself not to.

"Hey, Cloud,'' Leon began again. "I-"

"We need to go to Mars!" Axel shouted.

"Mars is the only safe place!" Roxas yelled in agreement.

"What were you going to say?"

"I'm going to send them to Mars, I swear."

Cloud laughed hard.

Leon's bus was last in line, and he could see the side of it now. He realized the one advantage to getting close to the end of the line. Roxas and Axel would have to get on their bus.

The duo in the back, consisting of Leon and Cloud, were silent and listened to the duo in front of them shout. Leon kept trying to tell his mouth to open, but it refused. He wanted to tell Cloud, but he just didn't know how.

"What if the monkeys, the masks, and the crab people try taking over the world together? What if they're in a bunker doing it now?"'

Leon couldn't ever remember being so happy to see bus nineteen.

Roxas had to turn around to get on the bus, having almost passed it up. When he turned around he saw Leon.

"You need to go to Mars!" Roxas shouted, poking Leon square in the head.

Roxas was gone into the bus before Leon could grab him.

They're taking over the world!" Axel screamed, poking Leon in the head, and avoiding Leon's grip long enough to get on the bus.

When Leon looked back over at Cloud, Cloud looked like he might just die from laughing. For the first second Leon wanted to strangle him, but then changed his mind. Seeing Cloud laughing made him feel better.

Now only if the boy would stop laughing.

It took a minute for Cloud to gather himself again and Leon knew better than to try to say it before.

And when Cloud stopped laughing they were standing in front of Leon's bus.

There was no proper time to tell Cloud, like Leon had thought whenever he imagined it. The bus would be moving soon and the driver would be shouting at him any second.

Not caring what the boy's reaction would be, Leon kissed him.

Without looking behind him, Leon jumped onto the bus.

If Leon had looked, he would have seen Cloud standing there blushing, a small smile on his face.

At least, Leon thought, he wouldn't have to see him for about seventy-two hours. He wouldn't really have to face what he had just done until Monday.

And then, while he sat with his head rested against the window as the bus began to drive away, he remembered Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest that lasted all weekend. Oktoberfest that everyone loved going to.

Like Cloud and Leon.

Now, just not going to Oktoberfest wasn't an option for Leon. He would have considered it, but when you lived close enough to hear it with every door shut in the house and smell it if one window was open a crack, you had no choice but to go.

Leon was pretty sure Cloud would be coming too, as much as he hated to admit it. Cloud lived only a few houses down from Leon, and shared the same predicaments about hearing and smelling Oktoberfest.

While Leon ate his funnel cake, he saw just about everybody from school except Cloud. He didn't know whether to be relieved at this or disappointed. Heck, for the last couple years the two of them had walked around for most of Oktoberfest together.

Yeah, but that was before you randomly kissed him, he reminded himself. You probably freaked him out.

After he threw the plate away, he went off to roam the two blocks it covered. He found it odd to be walking alone. Most people went with friends, family, or dates. He swore he must have been the only one walking alone there.

Trying to pull himself away from those thoughts, he ducked into the first tent he found.

It was a new one he hadn't seen last year, but decided he liked, even under the circumstances. Rows upon rows of sunglasses laid out before him. Sure, it was night out and he couldn't use daylight to test them, but there were light bulbs lit up that he could use.

Some of the glasses looked rather cool and durable, which was what Leon needed after he sat on five different pairs and made them crooked, which made them useless. The others were little dinky ones that could neither block any light or withstand getting beat up.

The vendor talked to him and Leon gave simple answers back, having no desire to be talking to the guy half the night.

After about ten pairs Leon thought he had found one that might manage to last him a month. He tried it on, resisting the urge to pull off that annoying tag that hung down onto your nose.

"Hey, Leon."

Leon jumped and knew he did. He thought it sounded like Cloud, but he would have seen Cloud by now.

When he turned around he was staring, and thankful that he had glasses on. Standing there was indeed Cloud.

"Do you realize how hard you made it to find you? Gad I to ask Axel and Roxas if they saw you. And then I had to deal with a fifteen minute talk about how I need to go to Mars because it's the only safe place from the evil masks and evil monkeys, and that crab people can transform and look like anyone!"

Leon started laughing, he couldn't help it. He could image Axel and Roxas shouting about it again and could very well picture Cloud there listening to it all.

"Leon, that's not funny."

"Yes, it is,'' Leon argued, grinning wide.

"No, it isn't. They're both even more hyper now because they've had funnel cake. At least three each. I am not going anywhere around them for the rest of the night. And it isn't funny!"

The vendor was casting an odd look their way.

"Yes, it is,'' Leon repeated.

"And it was funny when Axel and Roxas poked you square in the head before getting on the bus."

Just as Cloud had predicted, that made Leon stop laughing immediately.

"Hey, that wasn't funny."

"Yes, it was,'' Cloud said, grinning.

They let out a laugh together.

"Listen, about what happened today, I didn't mean-"

"To wait so long,'' Cloud finished, a smile on his face.

Leon was in shock, his mouth hung open a bit. It hadn't been what he had meant to say at all, but it was something he did feel.

Cloud took advantage of it and kissed him.

When Cloud pulled away, he rubbed a hand over his nose.

"That tag itches."

**Okay, so how was that? Let me know what you think please!**

**To let you all know, if you're wondering where the evil masks, monkeys, and crab people came from that Axel and Roxas were talking about, it came from LarsJr who sometimes reviews my stuff. That conversation actually happened between me and her. In full view of buses and everyone leaving for the three day weekend that included Oktoberfest. I was screaming about evil monkeys and that. XD I have no idea how that whole conversation happened.**

**So let me know what you think about how I changed it. Any ideas for what you want to see would be cool too.**

**Thanks goes here to my reviewers of this story- Lonleykitsune, The Wandering Gambler, LarsJr, The Faded Guardian, Saphireyes15, Firey-Moonlight! Thanks all, you make it all worthwhile!  
**


	4. Chaos in the Art Room

**Hiyo to my readers! Here we go again, another chapter of craziness and randomness from Kingdom High. It's taken me a little bit, but here it is. This week has just been plain ol' hectic. I've had two papers due this week, and both were put off until the night before (yeah, how so responsible of me XD). To my knowledge there is no more papers coming up for a while, so updating ought to be easier a bit.**

**Chapter Info: This is from the challenge that Firey-Moonlight gave me. I'd give the whole challenge here, but that would ruin some of the surprise of it, wouldn't it? So, you'll see exactly what I was given at the end.**

**Disclaimer: Me no ownie, as always. If I did own some part of the company, they would have kicked me off for having way too much fun with it **

Most schools wouldn't let their students have a full day in school without classes and be free to do what they wanted, and expect everything to go orderly too. Most schools. Kingdom High wasn't like most schools. Kingdom High was a tad crazy.

The day before winter break had always been described by the teachers as mass chaos. Most of the rules went disregarded and completely broken. Yet the people in the higher levels kept saying to do it, while they weren't the ones who had to maintain at least a little order.

There were two options for the students that day. Either they watched the tournament going on in the gymnasium, or they watched the Christmas movies in the auditorium. Most students were in the auditorium, due to the fact that it was dark. It was easier to break rules in there, such as having CD players.

But for a small group of students, neither the auditorium nor the gymnasium was their choice. The art room was. Most people considered the art room just one art room, as in singular. Technically it was two rooms separated by a small glass room.

The art room was empty for the day. The two teachers that ran the classroom portions of it were judges of the tournament, and not present for any period of the day.

Axel, Sora, and Roxas were goofing off on one side of the glass room and Zexion, Demyx, Cloud, Leon, and Riku were actually working on the other. It was twelfth period, the last period of the day, and was half-over already. The group of workers was now getting slightly bored, or beyond slightly in Leon's case.

Zexion was nearing beyond slightly bored too. He was nearing going insane for another fifteen-minute wait. The book he had brought was finished, not only once but twice.

In the process of trying to zone out while others began talking, he ended up looking at what Demyx was working on beside him. It helped the whole boredom process if you watched what someone else was doing. Zexion became completely lost in watching Demyx write. After a couple seconds his curiosity got the better of him and he started to read it.

_The words are stuck in my throat / I just can't say them_

Zexion knew that Demyx did play in a band and concluded that it must be a new song. He wanted to know what it was about though. Demyx had never once looked troubled, not at the level the lyrics suggested. Demyx had always been carefree and joked around. Demyx was Demyx, right?

"What are you writing about?" Zexion asked Demyx.

Demyx jumped, having been completely absorbed in the piece. When he looked up a slight blush came over his cheeks.

He opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by the door connected to the glass room opening.

"Paint gun and water balloon fight!"

For a moment everyone simply stared Axel standing in the glass room doorway. At the desk moment they decided that a paint gun and water balloon fight was far more entertaining than trying to kill about fifteen minutes by just talking.

Axel ran back to tell Roxas and Sora while everybody was standing up.

"They're going to do it!" Everyone heard Axel shout.

"Riku, you have class here, where's the paint guns?" Leon asked.

"Back cupboard,'' Riku answered, pointing to the far corner.

"We're starting in a minute!" Sora shouted in to them. "And I'm timing!"

"So you better get the water balloons ready too!" Roxas added.

"Are there seriously balloons in here?" Cloud questioned Riku.

"Yeah, seriously. We've used them before."

"How?" Demyx asked.

Riku looked at the people around him and sighed. Of the five, he was the only one with an art class. It would be up to him to explain it.

"We fill the water balloons up with paint and we throw them at canvases. That's what we did last week."

"I think I'll take art next year,'' Demyx said. "Where are the balloons?"

Riku walked to the cupboard nearest to him and opened it up. Standing on tiptoe, he pulled a bag of balloons out of the back of it.

"Here, and if Sora's serious about the minute thing, we better get moving."

While Leon and Zexion pulled the paint guns out, Demyx, Riku, and Cloud filled the balloons at the three sinks.

Sora was serious about the minute thing, because the trio was standing in the glass room doorway ready to begin exactly a minute later.

Sora threw the first balloon, leaving no warning at all, and caught Riku square in his back. Riku turned around, letting lose a look that could scare Medusa, and flung his own balloon straight at Sora.

The fight erupted at full scale. Pretty soon paint was everywhere in the room and what wasn't multicolored was now just soaked to no end.

Axel climbed up onto one of the desks to get the best aim for the paint gun. Zexion climbed up onto another desk on the other side of the room to match him. Paint not only flew around at ground level, but also above everyone's heads too.

If the school hadn't been in chaos before, it certainly was then, because there was no longer any quiet section of the school.

After five minutes of steady fighting, the water balloon supply was low and at least one of the paint guns was completely empty. The room was drowned in paint, particular the walls of the glass room. Most of the stuff hanging up was soaked so bad it was wrinkled.

Most of the participants was thoroughly soaked and had multicolored hair. Riku's silver hair was streaked with red and blue, which was also runny to boot because of Sora's constant water balloon attack. Axel's red hair was now drenched in blue. Zexion's was now streaked with purple.

All in all, everyone was a mess.

While Zexion hadn't had any art classes this year, he had the year before, and remembered enough of the classroom to know where the refills were to the paint guns.

Problem? The refills were in the glass room, and Sora, Axel, and Roxas still stood in front of it. This was going to take planning, and careful use of what he had left. Not to mention some back up, as much as he didn't want to admit that.

Zexion made quick eye contact with his group, and took off running. Axel did manage to get him a couple times, as well as Sora with one of his water balloons. Zexion didn't get stopped though, and he had expected that. To his immense relief, the door to the glass room he was trying was indeed open, there were two and Roxas was standing in front of the one they had come through.

Zexion had been kneeling in front of the cupboard, ripping open one of the bags inside, when the door he had just come through flew open. It was Demyx.

Demyx tripped.

And landed on top of Zexion.

When Zexion opened his eyes again, the air knocked out of him, he was startled to see Demyx so close. Even more startled to see Demyx blushing.

Zexion thought about the lyrics, and thought about how Demyx had looked when he asked about it. He thought about it all. Maybe Demyx always smiled and always goofed off because it was 'normal'. It was what people expected of Demyx.

But maybe Demyx wasn't really always happy.

Like now.

And Zexion felt horrible that he had always missed it. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Songs were honest, right? Demyx couldn't lie in a song.

But what did he need to say? What would release him?

Demyx was looking uncertainly down at Zexion, and he knew it had to do with him.

And they both forgot about the paint gun and water balloon fight happening outside of the glass room. They both forgot about the paint guns lying on the floor around them. They just forgot where they were.

Demyx leaned down and kissed him.

"I love you."

Zexion knew that Demyx was released. The whole act was gone. He was Demyx again.

"You should have just told me, Demyx,'' Zexion whispered. "You shouldn't have put yourself through all of this. It's not like I hate you. I love you."

Zexion kissed him back.

The world they had forgotten outside of the glass room came rushing back with the sound of approaching footsteps towards the door. They rolled quickly away from each other, grabbing the paint guns again.

Leon was standing in the doorway.

"What's taking you so long?" He asked.

Zexion and Demyx looked at each other, no immediate excuse coming to either of their minds.

"We were attacking dust bunnies!"

Leon looked at Demyx for a long moment before bending down to grab a refill and walking back into the fight.

Zexion looked over at Demyx and started laughing.

"Dust bunnies?"

"Yeah, dust bunnies!" Demyx said, laughing too, a real laugh. "There's one right there on you."

Demyx lifted the paint gun and fired. Paint streaked across the top of Zexion's head, adding red to the purple already there.

"You are so lucky there's nothing in this gun anymore,'' Zexion told him, grinning.

The red already soaking into Zexion's hair couldn't have ruined that moment at all.

The only thing that could ruin that moment to any degree was the announcements starting. The school day would be over in a minute.

"Guess we better get out of here,'' Zexion commented.

"Yeah."

Standing up, they left the paint guns on the floor and walked out together. On the other side of the counter that split the glass room in half, Axel, Sora, and Roxas were heading back into their room.

Stepping inside the room that had taken the brunt of the attack, Zexion wondered vaguely how the art teachers would react. He could guarantee that they hadn't expected something like this to happen.

He also wondered what the teachers were going to think when they saw them in the hallway. If they were careful, they might be able to get out of the school without being stopped, but only if they were very careful.

Zexion's attention went to Demyx when he stopped dead in front of the notebook that he had been writing on. From feet behind Demyx, Zexion could see the paint streaks across the paper.

"Is it going to be okay?" Zexion asked.

Demyx turned and gave a smile to Zexion that was wide and one hundred percent real.

"Why does it matter? It's not true anymore."

**Okay, there we go. Finished!**

**Okay, here's the full challenge. Like I said, I thought it might spoil it some to say it in the beginning. Firey-Moonlight asked for a DemyxxZexion pairing with paint guns, one minute made water balloons, and dust bunnies. It gave me a little trouble, but there it is.**

**My school really does that whole free day before winter break. My school, may I say, is crazy too.. **

**Just to say, I didn't mean for it to get so serious on Demyx's behalf near the end, but it kind of ran away from me. For any kind of reference, if I say it ran away from me, that means it ran away from me while screaming XD, and it happens a lot. **

**So, hopefully this was still good. Leave a review for me, and thank you very much if you do! Also, feel free to leave a challenge, they're appreciated too!**

**Thanks!**


	5. Who He Watches

**Hello everyone! Long time no see! Yeah, it's been so busy around here. Papers, projects, and play practice. Gah. I got caught up in A Series of Unfortunate Events and then the library got more Fruits Basket in. I've had a hard time tearing myself away from books. (innocent grin). I love reading waaay too much.**

**But here we go, new chapter!! This is from The Wandering Gambler's challenge, and I hope he likes it!**

**Disclaimer: Me no ownie, peoples. Me no ownie. All I own is the Series of Unfortunate Events books, which are seriously driving me mad because the last one is out and I haven't read it and it's sitting on my bookshelf!! Gah! Sorry, if you don't know the series, must sound like complete nonsense to you.**

**Chapter Five- Who He Watches**

"Hey, Axel, do you have your journal for today?"

Axel's head snapped up in alarm.

"Journal? But I thought the paper was due today and the journal was due next Friday!" Axel exclaimed. "Oh, shut up, Riku, it's not funny,'' he groaned after a second.

"Yes, it is. If you actually paid attention in class and didn't do everything the night before, you would have known for sure that the paper's due today and not the journal."  
"Oh, shut up, Riku. Not all of us live for the teacher's words."

"I don't,'' Riku shrugged. "I just don't goof off during class."

At that moment the teacher, Mr. Xigbar, walked into the room. He was a 'floater', one of the teachers that didn't own a room, but just floated between rooms. Because of that, most of the time the students were there before him and able to goof off for a couple minutes before he got there from whatever room he was coming from.

"Get your papers out and be ready to turn them in."

Demyx came in just seconds after Mr. Xigbar just as the bell rang.

"Mr. Xigbar, I don't have my paper."

This caught the attention of most of the class, including Riku and Axel. They had known about the paper for probably a month. Xigbar was one of those teachers that you learned the limits of very quickly. You learned your teachers' limits and when you can try to get away with something and when you don't have a hope to. You just learned that, like you just had to learn to survive the suicidal hallways.

Everyone had learned quickly Xigbar's limits, and that he was one of the teachers that would take anything late. He had been reminding them constantly for the past week that they better have it done on time. This was the first major project, so nobody really knew what to expect from him yet, they just knew that he gave off that vibe.

"And why don't you?" Xigbar asked, a vein visibly pulsing in his forehead.

"Well, I sort of left it at home,'' Demyx answered, unfazed by Xigbar's obvious anger.

"And why didn't you have somebody bring it up?"

"Well, uh, Mr. Xigbar, I can't. It's kind of complicated. The paper's at home on my desk. I have keys to the apartment, but I'm not allowed to leave. Dad can drive, but he doesn't keys. Mom has the keys but she can't drive and she's not in town today."

Xigbar gave Demyx one of the blankest looks that anybody had ever seen on his face before.

There were some things that they just didn't teach you in college when you were learning to become a teacher. They taught you the basics and they taught you techniques, but they didn't teach you things that you would come across daily, like how to stop students from tearing your room apart when they got to the room before you did, or how to tell if a student is lying directly to your face. They hadn't taught Xigbar that, and there was no 'How To Tell If They're Lying Or not for Dummies' book to be found, he had looked.

Xigbar sighed.

"Turn it in Monday."

"Thanks, Mr. Xigbar!" Demyx chirped happily, heading back towards his seat.

Xigbar turned back and faced the class, unconsciously rubbing at the pulsing vein that promised to be a headache. His eyes came to Riku and Axel, who sat side by side in the front.

"Don't you dare say anything."

The whole class laughed.

"Pass your papers up."

There was the general noise of talking as this was done, and then the whole room went silent. They were waiting for a certain sentence.

"As you all know, today we have a pep rally, so the classes are shortened, and we won't be able to teach anything today-"

Xigbar was cut off by a cheer from the class.

Free reigning chaos followed.

None of the students really liked the pep rallies. They had a tenancy to be exactly the same every single time and most students didn't have school spirit. Now, there was a reason that most of the school loved them, unless you were in the band that played during the pep rallies, and that was the fact that it severely messed with the schedule. All of the classes were just long enough that you could goof off and talk to people, but too short for a decent lesson. Pep rally Fridays were just plain awesome.

Within two minutes there were at least five different paper football games going on. Anybody that was trying to do something semi productive, like reading, had to use that sixth sense that told them when they were in the line of fire. Basically, Mr. Xigbar's room had been transformed into a football stadium, with groups of girls talking and the occasional reader sitting on the field in the danger zone.

"So, what are you doing tonight?" Riku asked.

Riku and Axel were two of the few boys not trying to kill each other with paper footballs. They had never been into it much, especially after the incident when they discovered that a very well aimed paper football could actually fly up and hit the principal when he's at the podium in the auditorium talking.

"I might end up at the game. I'm not sure."

"Why? We never win anyway."

Axel didn't answer.

Why did he go? It was true that their school team had never won, not even before their group showed up at the school. So why was it that he kept going to the games? It's not like he went with anybody. The game was really a social event if anything. Why else would anyone go when it always ended up extremely cold, when there were always such huge crowds at the food lines, and when were always little kids running around that could flatten you in an instant because you never saw them until a second before they hit you?

Okay, so maybe he did know, he admitted to himself, but he would never tell Riku.

"For the heck of it,'' Axel shrugged.

"Uh huh,'' Riku said, giving Axel a glance that told him that he knew he was lying. "And why do you go really?"

"Cause I get bored."

"I've known you for a couple years, Axel. You may get bored, I can testify for that. Otherwise, we would have never had the whole episode with the hole in Sora's ceiling."

Axel laughed, remembering that. Axel had gotten bored and decided to discover what happened when you let off rockets in the house. After all, boredom spawned dangerous ideas, and Axel had always loved explosions. To help him in his experiment, he recruited Riku because Riku was the only one with keys to Sora's house. Sora was the only one Axel knew that had rockets, Axel wasn't allowed to buy any after he tied one on the neighborhood cat. With Riku's help he got Sora's rockets and then got too excited to even make it back to his house. The look on Sora's face when he got home and found out that he was missing half of his ceiling had forever remained in both Axel and Riku's mind.

"See? That's what happens when you get bored. You don't go to a game, especially when your team has never won to your knowledge. You actually have a reason for going, Axel."

"Just keep swimming!"

Half of the class's heads whipped around to the back of the classroom. One of the flying paper footballs went astray and hit one of the girls, who proceeded to yell at the boy, who happened Leon.

Sitting in the back of the room were Sora and Demyx. It had been Demyx who had randomly shouted 'Just keep swimming!'. Beside him, Sora was laughing hard and close to crying.

Everyone looked at each other and groaned. When those two got hyper, they were a pretty deadly pair.

"Anyway, Axel, you can tell me the reason, seriously."

"Careful with that hammer!" Sora shouted.

Riku sighed.

"I have to ride home on the bus with both of them today. I'm doomed."

Axel laughed, imagining it.

"And it's only second period."

"Yeah, scary, isn't it? They'll be bouncing off the bus ceiling by then."

"Hey, Riku, this pass is for you,'' Mr. Xigbar said, dropping the said pass onto Riku's desk. "Better go now."

"What's it for?" Axel asked once the teacher went back to his desk.

"Oh it's from Miss Aerith, the art teacher. I thought it might have been the office. She said she might have me come down today."

Axel watched Riku walk out of the room and breathed a sigh of relief. He'd have to thank Miss Aerith the next time he saw her, even though she associated him with the whole hot glue gun accident. Really, Riku was a good friend of his, but Riku had a tenancy to know when he wasn't saying the whole truth too.

"Why do you go to the games, Axel? I didn't think you were much of a football person."

Axel turned in his seat to look at the person behind him who had spoken.

Roxas.

Really, if he wasn't going to tell Riku why he really went, why was he going to tell Roxas?

While trying to come up with some kind of answer, Axel looked down at Roxas's desk. Music sheets were laid across the desk in a mess.

"I don't go to watch the game, I go to watch the band,'' Axel blurted out.

Axel had one of those moments where you say something you didn't mean to, and you cringe and your eyes go wide. He hadn't meant to say it. He had never even said it aloud; never mind meaning to tell it to Roxas.

"Really? The band?"

Roxas didn't believe it, and Axel didn't blame him. Along with the team, the band didn't get that much love either.

"Yeah."

"You're weird."

Axel didn't have anything to say to that. What could he say? That wasn't something he ever thought he would hear from that mouth.

Axel decided that this conversation really couldn't get that much worse and decided to let it go wherever it went.

"You don't even know who I watch in particular."

"Probably Kairi or Namine."

Axel laughed.

"Nope, not any of the girls. So, how's the music coming along?"

"Bad. The teacher gave me a solo to have for tonight and I'm screwed. Why do you care?" Roxas asked, distracted from the matter at hand.

"Because I do,'' Axel shrugged. "Why are you screwed?"

"I can't play when I'm having a bad day. It messes me up."

Axel looked down at Roxas, slightly wondering at the pang in his chest.

"Oh, well let's see if we can fix that."

Roxas watched Axel walk away and then return with a blank sheet of paper. He tried to look, but Axel hid it from his view when he started writing. Roxas watched in confusion when Axel got up and went around the room talking to people.

"What is he doing?" Zexion asked beside Roxas, peering up from a book.

"I have no idea."

Within minutes Axel plopped the piece of paper down on Roxas's desk, grinning happily.

"There,'' he said proudly.

Roxas looked down, an eyebrow raised at Axel.

"It's not my birthday, you know. My birthday was a couple months ago."

"So what? That just means you have two birthdays this year."

The bell rang and the class departed.

A period later, Roxas sat in his study hall, looking over the piece of paper. He hadn't had a chance last period to really look at it, and he was shocked at what he was seeing then.

Everybody in class had actually signed it, wishing him a happy birthday and such. It made him grin, and he knew he had to look stupid sitting there in the back of the auditorium. It made him feel happy in a way he hadn't before.

The football game dawned quickly on Roxas. Truth be told, the pep rally had gone better than he had remembered it ever going before. The school had been into it more than they ever had, thanks to the whole 'throwing pies at the teachers' thing. Roxas had zoned out during most of it, most of the band did anyway. He remembered looking up and seeing Riku holding Sora down, and Axel with a death grip on Demyx.

He almost missed his cue as he pulled himself out of what had happened that afternoon. He stepped forward, preparing for the solo he would have to do. As he was walking up, he realized that he was the third person in the last line.

_I watch the third person in the last line._

Beginning his solo, he caught sight of Axel leaning up against the fence around the field. Axel's eyes were on him.

The solo wasn't going to be bad at all, as it was turning out. Roxas's hands only failed him when he was frustrated and having a bad day. He wasn't having a bad day anymore.

He smiled back at Axel.

**So what do you think? Another chapter from my weird mind. As usual, some of this stuff comes from my life. Like Demyx's excuse in the beginning. I've used that. XD. I actually did. The money was on top of the paper and I grabbed the money and left the paper. I had to tell my teacher that exact speech. And I bet no one's ever told him that before.**

**The throwing the pies thing did happen too, a couple weeks ago. It was fun. The whole card thing came from somebody who sat ahead of me in English. Half of my English class thought October 20th was my birthday, even though mine is in June. Yeah, most of the people I know are insane.**

**Well, hope you like! Please leave me a review, and a challenge if you want! Thanks to my reviewers, you make this worthwhile!!**

**Toodles till next time!**


	6. The Delicate Balance

**Hiyo everyone! Update! Yay! Happy to have this one done. I had to spend at least an hour today proving the fact that yes, I have a desk, but it is temporarily lost. So I have found the top of my desk. It's amazing. XD**

**Disclaimer: Me no ownie. All I own is the random dust bunny friends I found today.**

**This chapter is off of Falcon-Jade-Darkness's challenge. Hope she likes, even if it didn't follow the challenge exactly!**

Chapter Six- The Delicate Balance

Being the first one into a classroom had its perks. Sure, you occasionally had to help pass something out or set something up, but there were things that only the first in the classroom got.

Like the sight of Axel coming into the classroom, stopping dead at the sight of the substitute teacher, with a deer in the headlights look in his eyes, and then running back out of the room before she could turn around.

Cloud knew why Axel had reacted that way. He understood perfectly.

The substitute teacher they had really wasn't that much of a sub, in the sense that they had her as their actual teacher for the first month of school. Nobody had really liked her though. Actually, to say that was an understatement, everybody hated her. That fact had been established by the end of the second day of school. Even Zexion, who rarely voiced hatred for any teacher, openly said he didn't like this one.

The only thing that had carried them through was the reassurance that she was only a temporary teacher. At the end of that month, their permanent teacher had come and they had hoped never to see her again.

Cloud wasn't happy to get her as a sub, but it was also entertaining to see everyone's reactions, an awesome treat given to only the first in the classroom.

The next to come in after Axel was Leon.

Leon stopped dead in the doorway and mouthed a rather rule breaking word.

But unlike Axel, Leon did not get the chance to escape, the sub turned around.

Her face lit up when she saw him. At that moment Cloud also saw Leon's face freeze completely, giving off that look of his that said his cerebellum just fused.

"Oh, hi, Leon! It's good to see you again!"

"Hi, Ms. Larxene,'' Leon said, his voice tight.

Larxene turned back to the desk, happy at the response she had gotten. Of course, Cloud, who had known Leon for quite some time, knew Leon sounded like he was having a hernia and that it was completely forced. It just seemed that sometimes teachers got lost in translation.

Leon made his way to his seat, directly in front of Cloud, all the while glancing over his shoulder.

"Don't you dare say anything,'' Leon muttered as he sat, having seen the large grin plastered on Cloud's face on his way back.

Leon's growl had done nothing but make Cloud want to laugh and forced him to practice self control. It was pretty much common sense that you didn't have any kind of personal conversation, of which laughing fell under, until there were people in the room. You didn't want a teacher asking what you were laughing so hard about.

The next into the room was Sora, who was closely followed by Riku.

Sora walked in calmly, unfazed by the teacher in the classroom. Riku, however, reacted like something had attacked him. Cloud had never seen anyone attempt to throw half their body backwards and whiplash both arms out in a pinwheel motion in order to get back out of the room. Cloud marked it down mentally as something funny and something definitely worth seeing again.

Riku sat down beside Cloud, with Sora sitting behind him.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Riku asked Sora in an angry hushed whisper.

"Aw, Riku, that would have killed it!"

Cloud laughed, earning a side glare from Riku. Sora had always been the happy go lucky type and loved messed with people, though not in a bad way. He had been like that since before Cloud knew him. Cloud had known him long enough to know two other things. First, Roxas was a close friend of Sora's and Roxas knew most of the time who the subs were. Second, he knew that Sora loved to mess with Riku in particular.

Cloud tuned out the conversations that began to fill the room as the rest of the class arrived.

In an attempt to zone out into other thoughts, Cloud focused on the back of Leon's head.

Cloud and Leon had been friends for most of school.

But even after all of that time, Cloud still didn't know everything about Leon. Sure, he knew a great deal. He knew the basic run of what Leon did on the weekends. He knew what Leon did when he got home from school. He knew the things that Leon hated. He knew the things that Leon liked.

Some of them anyway. There was one 'like' about Leon that Cloud didn't know. And it was that 'like' that he really wanted to know and couldn't figure out on his own.

Who did Leon like?

Cloud forced himself out of those thoughts as the bell rang, Axel darting in just as it did.

"Thought you were skipping,'' Cloud commented as Axel took his seat beside Leon.

"Why would I do that?" Axel asked, acting offended.

Cloud's eyes found the teacher only feet away.

"You know why."

"Attention class!" Larxene shouted over the conversations. "I will be your sub today. It is so wonderful to see you all again! Well, I was told that you would be working on your cells today. Is that correct?" When the class said yes she continued, ''you will have the period today to work. But do not get too loud!"

The class was let loose to work, and Cloud knew that Larxene would soon regret it. They were working on models of cells. The models were made of jello and that alone was a recipe for disaster, never mind the fact that they were using candy too.

Cloud's group was Riku, Axel, and Leon. Another factor for disaster.

The first task was to get the jello out of the fridge across the hall. Now, it was common sense that whoever went over to get it had to have steady hands. That voted out Axel immediately, despite his protests.

It was Leon who got voted to go over and get it, despite _his _protests.

When Leon returned, he found his group members in the process of creating a mess on the table. He stared, almost dropping the container filled with jello.

Axel was busy pounding the nonexistent crap out of the bag of Ramen Noodles. Riku had fruit by the foot circling the outer edge of the desk. Cloud was fighting open one of the super dooper glued shut fruit gushers bags open, which suddenly did rip open, gushers flying everywhere.

Leon groaned.

"What are you doing? I was gone a minute!"

His three group members just looked at him and grinned.

"Well, if we don't break up the noodles, they'll be too big to be DNA!"

"And the only way we can use the fruit by the foot for the mitochondria is to unroll it!"

"And we can't use the gushers for the lysosomes if they're still in the pack!"

Leon sighed and sat the jello down, being careful to avoid the fallen gushers and the ring of fruit by the foot on the desk.

"Somebody's got to scoop some of the jello out,'' Leon told them.

"I'll do it!" Axel announced happily.

They looked at each other warily, but nobody was quick enough to stop him before he buried the spoon in and tore a hunk out.

"Just be careful, okay? If you go through the bottom, we're not going to get a good grade,'' Riku said, cringing as Axel went after it with the spoon again.

"I will, ain't I always?"

Somehow that did not reassure anybody. They had seen him go through the bottom of an ice cream carton when he got excited while eating it one time. They feared for their jello.

By miracle, Axel had refrained from going through the bottom of their jello. Sure, it was still perilously thin, but it was also plainly still there.

Having gotten the spoon safely away from Axel, they turned their attention to the next task: getting the candy, which were acting as their organelles, into the jello. Easier said than done. The jello, which now really looked like a case since the middle was in a heap on the desk, was only so big and the candy was definitely big.

Riku reached down into his backpack to get the little Reese cups that was going to be the nucleus. It quickly became evident though that they only needed one, since every cell only had one, and that a full bag was not needed.

Their regular time teacher had said that they could eat what they brought, so as long as they didn't eat their whole project.

The spare chocolate was rapidly disappearing.

The next job after the nucleus was the DNA, otherwise known as Ramen Noodles.

Axel, refusing to let anybody else do it, opened the bag, spraying little chunks of noodles everywhere, which made the tables around them look over for a second. Leon reached over and began to put some of them in the jello around the nucleus.

While he worked, Axel was actually quiet. Everybody soon found out why. He was holding a small pouch that had been inside the noodle bag.

"Hey, guys, it's says this is the chicken flavor stuff. Is it powder?" Without bothering to wait for an answer, he opened the pouch. A puff of powder flew up and he coughed. "Yeah, it's powder."

Everyone else of the group looked at each other and shook their heads, unsure what the heck could be said.

There were a couple seconds of silence in the group as Leon continued to work, but it was interrupted by a yelp.

"Ew! It tastes horrible!"

"Please tell me you did not just taste that,'' Leon muttered as he looked up.

Axel did not answer, but the look on his face that resembled a lizard was answer enough. After gaining his breath, Axel walked over to the table behind them.

"Hey, taste this!"

Sora barely even looked up before answering.

"No, the whole class heard you scream."

For about ten minutes the group was quiet, actually working. The ring of fruit by the foot disappeared of the desk, a small portion of it becoming mitochondria and the excess getting eaten.

By the time they were almost finished, everybody in the group but Leon was giddy from the amount of sugar overrunning their blood.

"We forgot the ribosomes!" Riku exclaimed.

"I have them! I brought them!"

Leon looked around at his group members and wondered how the heck he had gotten stuck with them.

Cloud laughed.

"What's so funny?" Leon asked him.

"The look on your face. Like you think you're sane and we're not. I've seen you up at five am writing a report. You're sane, until you get tired."

Leon didn't respond to that and really didn't know how, which made Cloud laugh again.

Cloud remembered that weekend well. Moments like that were impossible to block from memory, not that he actually wanted to. It was proof that Leon was indeed normal, or normal as he saw it. The memory of Leon loopy and singing 'Prince Ali' from Aladdin was never going to leave Cloud's head.

"Tell me you're not seriously thinking of using salt as ribosomes, Axel,'' Leon said, temporarily knocking the image of him singing out of Cloud's head.

"Well, they're supposed to be small and salt's small!"

"But they're supposed to be visible."  
"Salt's visible!" Riku objected.

"Not against the jello it isn't,'' Leon sighed.

"Too bad!" Axel said, dumping the pile of sugar onto the jello.

"Wait, add the powder, that'll show up better!" Riku yelled, causing a couple people to turn and look at them.

The jello looked like something had exploded in it, but it was done. Cloud knew that Leon was thanking the heavens too.

Cloud could read the look on Leon's face easily, just like any other look. It came from all the years of knowing him. It came from all of the years of watching him.

Watching him because he wanted to be more than friends.

"Axel, what are you doing?" Leon screamed.

Cloud tore himself out of his thoughts and saw Axel spraying their jello with something called Axe.

"I want to see what'll do!"

Leon sat back, admitted defeat to the giddy and now pretty loopy redhead as the Axe began to eat away at the jello.

Cloud wanted to act on his feelings. He had wanted to for a good portion of high school. But he never had. You just didn't do that. You just didn't that when you didn't know who he liked. You just didn't randomly kiss your best friend who happened to be the same gender as you if you didn't know which way he went.

If he didn't go that way, you'd kill that friendship, and friendship was better than nothing.

Cloud wanted to kiss Leon though. He really did.

While Cloud helped them clean up, he came up with a plan. He knew that the whole thought process was at least partially brought on by the sugar. Sugar just did that to him. Cloud didn't care though. The sugar just became something rather handy to blame it all on if what he did made Leon want to end everything.

The bell rang.

Leon had eighth period lunch, which was directly after the chemistry class that had just ended, and he normally made it halfway down the hall before anyone else could. The lunch lines for eighth period were one of the worst out of all of the periods, and it required getting down there as quick as you could, which was harder when you were on the second floor.

Leon would have been halfway down the hallway again if Cloud hadn't stopped him. Screw the delicate balance, Cloud thought as he grabbed Leon's necklace and yanked him into a kiss.

When he pulled away Leon was wearing a blank look that even Cloud couldn't read. Cloud sensed immediately that he had screwed up.

"Leon, I-I-"

"Don't apologize."

Leon kissed Cloud.

They were quickly broken apart by a flood of other students coming into the hallway. Two of them were the rather giddy and loopy group members they had left behind who were now laughing.

**Gotta love the randomness that happens in my bio class. And, yes, Axe can kill jello. The goofy, crazy partner of my group decided to try it. What an experience that was, like him deciding to taste the chicken flavored powder from the noodles XD. It was bizarre. The whole teacher thing was something I really got to see. The reactions I mentioned were real, as scary as that may sound. I'm only alive today because nobody actually saw the quiet girl laughing her butt off.**

**Hope you like and please review! Feel free to leave a challenge too! Thanks goes to those that read and review. It lets me know how I'm doing and what you would like to see. Thanks!**

**There'll probably be an update Tuesday. I have that day off from school, so I'm going to be writing most of the day on various things.**


	7. Play Night

**Hello everybody! Chapter Seven!! This chapter is off of Orange Waffles' challenge! I hope you like it, Orange Waffles!**

**Disclaimer: me no ownie**

Trying to change under the stage with no light but a glow stick around your neck while four other people were trying to do the same thing was not easy.

It had been pretty silent until a suddenly yelp cut through the air, causing the rest of the changing cast to jump.

"Who the heck just stepped on my foot?" Riku yelled.

"Sorry, I think that was me,'' Demyx apologized.

"What the heck are you wearing?"

"My boots,'' Demyx answered, walking away, or so it could be guessed by what must have been his glow stick bobbing away.

_Oh right, _Riku thought, _Demyx's character in the play has boots._

A sixth glow stick suddenly entered their vision.

"You guys have to be quiet. People on stage heard that one."

"Listen here, Sora, that was not my fault,'' Riku said.

"Tell Marxulia we need more light. We can't see what we're doing!" Axel added.

The glow stick that signified Sora bobbed back up the stairs.

Marxulia was the drama teacher and ran the current play. Needless to say, it had been quite an interesting experience. Tonight was the first public performance. They would have two more shows and then, after surviving a month of hard practices, it would finally be all over.

Of course, in order for it to be finally all over, they had to survive this first.

"I am going to kill Marxulia,'' everyone heard Leon mutter. "Anybody know where my cape is?"

A chorus of 'no's went through the extremely dimly lit room. Leon groaned. A couple seconds later there was a yell, a glow stick jumping quite a bit of distance, followed by a loud thud.

"Leon,'' Axel groaned from the floor. "Found your cape. If you don't come over here and get it, I'm going to shred it."

"And here would be where?" Leon asked.

"On the floor! Where do you think?"

Zexion had a pounding headache coming on, as if the whole play wasn't nerve racking enough.

"Guys, you really do need to be quiet,'' Sora told them, coming down the stairs again.

"What did Marxulia say about the lights?" Riku asked.

"He said you're going to have to work with this."  
"Oh, that figures,'' Axel said.

"Guys, we're staring scene three."

A couple groans went throughout the room. After everyone that was in scene three, plus Sora, left, the only two remained, or, as it looked, two glow sticks floating in the darkness.

Demyx turned to where the other floating glow stick was. He knew the play well enough to know that the only other one there was Zexion, whose part didn't come up until late.

"Hey, Zexion, are you nervous?" Demyx asked.

Demyx wished that he could see Zexion's face.

Zexion was quiet 24-7 as far as anybody knew at school. He never really talked and normally didn't at all unless a teacher called on him. Most people were more than willing to leave Zexion alone. Demyx wasn't though. He wanted to get Zexion to talk more. He wanted to find out about Zexion, what he was really like.

He wanted to see the boy smile, he bet that smile was one of the contagious types.

Zexion didn't answer.

"Come on, Zexy. I'm just asking."

Demyx didn't see Zexion flinch at that particular variation of his name.

"So as long as you don't call me that again."

"Aw,'' Demyx groaned, a whine in his voice that either you could take or you just couldn't. If you couldn't, you could go clinically insane with two minutes of being around him. "Okay. So, are you nervous?"

Demyx heard Zexion sigh.

"Yeah, I am."

That wasn't really the answer Demyx had expected. Zexion nervous? It just seemed to defy logic. Zexion never really showed any strong emotion.

"Really? So am I!"

"You don't act like it,'' Zexion commented.

"That doesn't mean I'm not."

"Guess so,'' Zexion said after a couple seconds. "But you're always so outgoing."

"Who said I am?"

Zexion wanted to see the look on Demyx's face, because this was simply beyond his comprehension. How could someone that was like Demyx be nervous about this? Being up on stage kind of seemed like a natural Demyx thing.

Maybe Demyx wasn't so simple.

There was silence between them and neither knew what to say.

"So, do you know your lines?" Demyx asked, wanting to have Zexion talk again.

"Sort of."

"Want to go over them? It might help you."

There was a pause.

"Yeah, I think I do."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

A scene later Demyx and Zexion were greeted by the sound of someone flying down the stairs, a flying glow stick the only visible thing.

"So, who fell?" Zexion asked.

There was a pause as the figure laying at the bottom of the steps tried to shake off shock from falling down the steps and from hearing Zexion talk.

"Me. I am going to kill Leon and his cape."

Leon was going to get killed, and the both of them knew it. Halfway through the scene he did another quick costume change. One part of that costume change was taking the cape off. Demyx and Zexion resisted the urge to laugh. Axel was mad now and the idea of making it worse was deadly.

There was someone else coming down the stairs. Before anyone could say anything, that person stepped on Axel, who was too busy trying to figure out if his head was still in one piece to move. Axel shouted and the person who had stepped on him went tumbling sideways to the floor.

"Why the heck were you at the bottom of the stairs?" Riku demanded.

"I slipped on Leon's stupid cape!"

A second later Sora was coming down the stairs, and he tripped over the pair of them.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Three scenes later most of the cast were downstairs, making the room severely crowded. It was also Demyx's scene.

"I'm nervous,'' Demyx said, tightening his tie in the combined light of both his glow stick and Zexion's.

Zexion felt weird talking to Demyx. The last half hour hadn't changed that. Sure, they had learned a great deal about each other, but it didn't change the fact of the strangeness of it. He had found out that Demyx was really shy. He just handled it different than Zexion did.

It was sort of nice, Zexion supposed.

"You'll be okay. You know your lines well."

"Yeah, but still,'' Demyx objected.

"You'll be alright. Go on upstairs."

Zexion watched Demyx walk away, or really watched the glow stick move away.

Zexion thought he might like Demyx.

He wanted a minute, giving Demyx enough time to get upstairs and get onstage, and then went upstairs himself. Just at the top of the stairs there was a spot where you could stand and watch what was going on the stage.

Demyx had blanked out completely. He didn't know for the life of him what his next line was. In an attempt to recall it, he let his eyes wander. They wandered right to where Zexion was standing. His eyes widened in shock, for the fact that Zexion was standing there. He was shocked at the fact that Zexion was smiling.

Really smiling and really meaning it.

Somehow being on stage didn't seem so scary anymore.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The play was over, or at least that performance. After Demyx's scene, Demyx hadn't had the chance to see Zexion. Zexion was caught up in a load of back to back costume changes and was unreachable.

Everyone was downstairs again, changing back to regular clothes. Everyone could actually see what they were doing and the glow sticks lay discarded. It had been discovered that no, the fuse hadn't blown downstairs, the bloody light bulb was blown.

Demyx looked at Zexion, absentmindedly trying to fight the tie that refused to let go of him.

Demyx had wanted to get to know Zexion, and he had. He also wanted to be with him now. Just be. Zexion was somebody different than what he thought. Zexion was sort of like him.

Zexion turned, feeling Demyx watch him.

"Hey, you did good. I told you."

"Thanks to you,'' Demyx said.

Zexion shrugged. He didn't know what to say to that. Had anybody before actually said that? Somehow he doubted it.

Zexion walked over to Demyx. He reached up to Demyx's tie.

"you're doing it wrong, you know."

Demyx pulled Zexion into a hug.

"It's over!" Demyx told him happily.

it was a good feeling, knowing that you didn't have to be back in front of that crowd for a day or two.

When they pulled away, their lips came together in a kiss.

It took a second to realize what was happening, but they still didn't pull away.

**So what did you think?? Please leave me a review letting me know. Feel free to leave me a challenge too! I love the challenges.**

**I was recently in a play, so some of the stuff here comes from that. Some. A little. Not all of it though, we weren't even that crazy. Wait, never mind, yeah we were. I was the one backstage on a sugar high and couldn't sit still. so yeah, we were crazy. Just different crazy.**

**Hope you like this chapter, I think it's kind of different. So let me know what you think. I love my reviewers. I have to cut these notes short for today. I actually have to get ready to go see a play with a couple friends of mine.**

**So toodles!**


	8. Ball Room Dancing

Chapter Eight Ball Room Dancing

**Hello everyone! It's been quite a while and I apologize for that. My life got busy and complicated all at once. November I did NaNoWriMo- a contest to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. Me, I came in almost two weeks late and decided to do it anyway, something that taught me that I may very well be insane. On the last day of the month I had to pull off 10,000 words in order to finish. I spent all of December trying to finish the story, but, alas, the story refuses to end and I'm still writing it at over 80,000 words. The last month or so has been kind of rough, so I apologize for the wait.**

**Also, I apologize for this one being short. I was trying to get back into writing fan fiction- my muse for this completely abandoned me. I didn't want to try anything too long and completely kill it- which is why I didn't do anybody's challenge for this either. I apologize for that too. Next chapter I'll be back on track with my challenges, promise!**

**So please leave me a review!**

**Oh and I have a story on Fictionpress under the name Writer of Eternal Stories- please visit!**

**Disclaimer- I still don't own this, all I own is the novel that I am STILL trying to finish and the funny little sugar rush I am on.**

Study hall had been transferred to the gym for the last week or so. Nobody that was in the study hall actually knew why, but they weren't going to complain. Being the gym bleachers meant that they didn't have assigned seats and they could get away with practically anything. Also, to add to the awesomeness of the situation, they had just changed the rules so that they could have music devices in study hall. That change was warmly welcomed by students and teachers alike. The teachers were just happy to have it because it generally kept students quiet.

One of the things you had to learn was not to sing along with the music, that earned you an odd look from Cid, Demyx learned that the first day. The second lesson was no head banging. Axel had gotten the mother of all odd looks for that.

Being in the gym had another advantage that was highly amusing. You could watch the gym class do whatever it was that they were doing, something that ticked the gym students off to no end. Today, the gym class was going over something that had never been done before at Kingdom High. For all the craziness Kingdom High was, it had never reached that yet.

"Just what the heck are they doing?" Riku asked, looking up from his math homework. "Whatever it is, they better not be doing it in our grade."

"It's called ballroom dancing,'' Leon answered. "And, yes, they're doing it with our grade."

Riku groaned. Ballroom dancing? Just who was the crazy person responsible for this? Whoever it was had to be missing their marbles, or at least the better half of them.

There was no way Riku was going to ballroom dance with anybody. That was..just insane. Riku did not dance.

"Why?" Riku asked.

Leon shrugged.

"Principal says it should help with our people skills or what not. Something insane like that."

Riku decided to take Zexion's word on that. He knew Zexion worked in the office during a free period of his. If anybody was going to know the principal's excuse for this madness, it would be him.

"I knew it, Ansem's insane."

"Obviously,'' Leon agreed.

"I think it sounds like fun!"

Riku rolled his eyes at Demyx. That boy could think anything was fun if it was said right. There was proof of that too. Well known proof.

"Demyx, do you remember when you were extremely hyper in class?" Cloud asked, putting his book down.

Demyx gave a look of confusion and then shook his head. Most of the time he was hyper, but the stress Cloud put on it made it sound like a more serious time.

"Of course you don't,'' Riku told him. "You had to go to the nurse's and she said you wouldn't because of sugar overload."

"And you only did it because it sounded fun to mix Coke, chocolate, Red Bull, and sugar cookies,'' Leon said. "The janitor had to catch you."

Riku laughed at the memory of Xaldin running down the hallway after Demyx.

"What you think is fun is normally hazardous to the rest of us,'' Cloud told him.

Half of the study hall passed without much of an event, but Riku was torn away from math homework, which was proving to be rather hard, by the sound of Axel singing beside him. He reached over and pulled the headphones off his head. Axel flew up into a sitting up position.

"What?"

Riku laughed at the look on his face.

"You were doing it."

"Doing what?"

"You were singing outloud."

"Oh. Whoa, what the heck are they doing?"

Riku held back a laugh. Leave it to Axel to zone half the period and miss the bizarreness happening down below them.

"They're ballroom dancing."

"Are they doing it for our grade?"

"Yes, unfortunately. Thanks to our insane principal."

"Be by dancing partner?"

Riku just stared at Axel, his eyes wide. Axel liked to dance? Ballroom dance? Somehow that left him with an insane picture and he laughed outloud.

"Axel, I don't dance,'' he said honestly.

There was a disappointed look on Axel's face and Riku wished immediately that he hadn't said it.

"Please, Riku?"

"Yeah,'' Riku sighed.

He knew he was going to pay for it when they had gym, but that was okay, he guessed, for that smile it was okay. He was going to look like a fool, but he guessed he could deal, even if it meant Axel of all people was going to see it.

XXXXXXXXXX

A week later they were all standing in their gym class, learning ballroom dancing. Riku felt like a fool and was a hundred percent sure that he looked like one too.

"You know, Riku, you're not that bad of a dancer."

Riku laughed at that.

"Sure, I'm not."

"No, seriously,'' Axel insisted. "You're not. I like the way you dance."

Axel kissed him.

Maybe ball room dancing wasn't that bad.

**So please tell me how it was. Hopefully not too bad?**

**This was a nutty little piece inspired by what I got to see when study hall transferred to the gym for about two weeks. And I am so glad it's not my grade doing ballroom dancing. It was also personally me that got the mother of all odd looks for head banging during study hall. I think that teacher thinks I'm crazy now XD. **

**I was on a slight sugar rush for all of this, so Demyx's sugar experience came from me. I didn't mix all of that though. One of my friends is considering getting me Red Bull, Coke, and having a video camera. Ever since my doctor took me off of caffeine and chocolate, both which I've had today, I have next to no tolerance for it anymore. XD**

**Also, this was in part inspired by a lovely video- which I have now watched eight or nine times in a row, this collided with my sugar rush and it's been a fun trip lol. I recommend that you all visit this http:// www. youtube. com/watch?vt68RMfVgnxQ . That's what I blame some of the nuttiness of this on.**

**I hope you liked this and I apologize again for my long absence. Thanks for dealing with me!**


	9. The Camping Trip

**Hello everyone! An update! Huzzah!! And it's not too late XD**

**I give everyone a fair warning though. This thing…this update is weird. I seriously don't know where my brain was. It just died and I decided to keep writing. I looked at some parts of it again and I had to check to see if I consumed sugar myself in the last hour or so, and I haven't that's the sad thing.**

**But annnywaay this is IOwnAxel's challenge I hope she likes it! And I apologize if you think it's weird, I'm not too sure what you expected lol. It scares me and I wrote it XD**

**Disclaimer: Don't own, never have, all I own is my weird typos that keep coming from the blasted chapter!**

**Chapter 9- The camping Trip**

"What took you so long?" Cid asked them when they got to the lake. "You've been gone three hours!"

Leon looked at Axel out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, to begin with, idiot Axel got us lost."

"I did not!"

"Yes you did!"

"No I didn't!"

Cid shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. There was a headache coming on again.

When the principle had approached him about going camping with one of the clubs it had sounded like a good idea. Really at one point it had. The second it stopped sounding like a good idea it was way too late to get back out of it.

He had realized it was a very bad idea when he stepped on the bus that morning and saw just what boys were waiting for him.

The fact that it was a bad idea was reinstated about an hour into the drive when it had been discovered that half of Sora's bag contained sugar ridden candy. That had resulted in two hours of very loud, obnoxious singing. And that had resulted in one of the students, Cid couldn't tell for sure who it was, everyone was trying to claim it, locked in a gas station and didn't say anything about it for another hour of driving. And that had resulted in them being yet another hour two hours off of what they should have been running on for the time schedule. And that had resulted in the camping grounds manager giving Cid a long lecture how they were running so late and he almost couldn't save the spot for them.

And that was just yesterday. Cid was starting to hate the fact that they would be out in this semi-wilderness for a week.

Just what had he gotten himself into?

"You did too!"

Cid sighed. It would probably be best to sort this one out as quick as possible.

"Zexion."

Zexion jumped and looked up from his bag.

"Yes?"  
"Did Axel get you guys lost?"

There we go, that was a good idea, Cid decided. Ask the quiet kid…Always ask the quiet kid…

"Yes, he did. He had the map upside down for an hour."

Cid stared for a second but shook his head. Don't ask….Just don't ask…

"And what about the other two hours?"

"You don't want to know."

Okay…So that wasn't the response he expected. Cid turned back to Leon.

"What about the other two hours?"

"Let's just say the bus isn't going anywhere for a while."

Cid had to resist the urge to bang his head off the nearest tree.

-

Fishing sounded like a safe idea. Perfectly safe. Everyone was capable of swimming, right? So in all theory it should have worked.

Should.

Zexion realized that Cid's idea had backfired. While it was a fact that everyone was capable of swimming, Cid had failed to note the fact that fishing required worms and involved worms.

Not good.

Within a minute two people had been hooked. Leon being one of them. Then the minute after that Axel was tossed in the lake.

Just not good, Zexion thought, shaking his head.

Axel was dragging himself back to the shore, his clothes soaked and glaring at Leon with a look fit for murder. A chase ensued over half of the sure. Within seconds Sora and Roxas had joined in.

A week. That was a long time, wasn't it?

Why had he come again?

Oh…wait…that was right. Demyx had come and Zexion had promised to come too. Of course, Zexion's boyfriend, of about a month, hadn't mentioned that they would be dealing with the Hyperness Trio either. Zexion would have reconsidered.

"Hey, Zexion, look, Axel just fell in the lake!"

Okay, so maybe he wouldn't have. That lopsided grin made up for the long week he was stuck here.

-

Somehow everyone had survived till the last night. There had been more sugar incidents. During the last of those, it had been discovered that Leon could get hyper. Nobody was too eager to relive that. Nobody wanted to see a hyper Leon running around the camp at three in the morning streaking. Just…no.

At one point the whole can of worms disappeared only to reappear later in Riku's bed.

All in all it had been a scary week.

They were finishing up the last peaceful night, or how peaceful Zexion suspected that they could get anyway, by telling stories around the campfire. It sounded like a decent ideas. After all, no sugar, hooks, or worms, right?

Zexion hadn't found the story scary at all. In fact, he was pretty sure he had written scarier things himself, and that was when he had no control over what it was he was typing. Of course, he realized, this was coming from a boy who had not even flinched during Stephen King's It. Demyx had tried watching it and ended up screaming loud enough to make the lady from the upstairs apartment come down and throw a fit at them though.

Zexion had zoned during the story, preferring to think about the dilemma of how they were getting back to school when the bus was stuck in a tree. Cid still didn't know about that one yet.

Zexion was jerked back into reality though when he felt hands grab his waist. A couple people were laughing at that and he knew it. Putting that aside though, he looked down at saw Demyx holding onto him tightly.

Zexion smiled without even realizing it and wrapped his arms around Demyx.

-

Zexion jerked awake at what must have been an awful hour, or so he could figure. It felt way too early to be up and there wasn't a single ray of light in the sky yet, he had discovered the hard way that the tents barely passed for shade when the sun went up.

He looked around for whatever the heck must have woken him up.

"Zexion! It's the floating jack-o-lanturn heads!"

Zexion blinked once at that. Oh…yeah…the stupid story…the stupid story that had scared the crap out of Demyx. He pulled himself up into a sitting position.

"Why do you say that, Demyx?"

"Look!"  
Zexion followed the finger right to a floating light.

Oh…it was waaay too early for this.

"Demyx, relax, it's just the glowstick. Somebody's going to the bathroom. Come on, back to bed."

A second later both of them were laying down again, much to Zexion's relief. Really he wasn't a morning person, or any hour of the night that qualified as morning.

Okay, he was cold now. They had both moved and the bubble of warm air had escaped the blankets. Prying an eye open, he looked to see how far Demyx was from him. Scooting over a few inches, he put an arm around the boy, smiling and burying his face in the warmth, kissing him.

-

"How the heck did you guys get the bus in the tree?" Cid demanded early the next morning.

"Don't put Red Bull in the engine."  
Cid stared at Axel for a minute, shook his head, and didn't talk the whole way to the camping grounds office.

**Ack, hope that wasn't too weird XD. I swear my brain just pulled some weird act on me that I don't even know lol. I've never been camping, so this is actually the one chapter that doesn't have any of my life in it, which is really weird. I just had fun imagining what might happen.**

**But anyway, I'm sorry to say that I'm not taking any more challenges right now. Just not yet, k? I've still got more to catch up on, and when I'm caught up I'll open that door again, but ack…I need to finish all of the challenges first, so let's hold off for a little bit XD**

**Please leave a review and let me know what you think!!**


	10. Defy Logic

**Hello everyone. I'm updating late again, crap. Apologize for that. This one's long compared to the other chapters, so hopefully that makes up for that lol It's been sorta busy around here again. The chapter would have been done sooner if it wasn't for that, and if I didn't decide today that an hour long walk was past due. See, we've had a whole bunch of negative weather this winter, and today it's in the fifties, which is now considered by me to be a miracle heat wave. I think I only came back because I knew I had killed one cellphone battery and the mp3 player needed charged yet again.**

**Hopefully my updates get better. Promise I'll try anyway XD I'm running a writing group now though and updates might get put off because of that. Rest assured that summer updates are going to be so much better.**

**Okay, this is off of Arakni****'s challenge. Hope she likes : ). **

**Disclaimer: Me no ownie. I just own the story that's been keeping me from this. That's all I own.**

Axel sighed, staring down at his math work. He hated math. Really, he did. He hated it more than detention itself. Math was, well, evil, as far as he was concerned. Math was a brand of evil required by law. Like most evils, no matter how many times you associated yourself with it, you were never quite prepared for what it threw at you next, like proofs, the bane of math.

Of course he might do better in math if he could focus. There were problems with him focusing. Well, in his defense, at least he wasn't penning out a novel in the back of the room. He still didn't understand how Zexion did that and managed to ace the tests. He had to admit that he admired the boy's ability to insanely multitask.

No, the main part of Axel's problem, the part that didn't have anything to do with his attention span that was equivalent to a squirrel on crack, was the kid behind him. On most days Demyx was perfectly normal, or as normal as anyone had ever seen him get. There were the occasional days though when Demyx latterly had an attention span worse than Axel's, and that was quite a feat in itself. Demyx would literally spend most of the period, even if the teacher was talking, poking him every other second. If he wasn't poking him, Demyx would, for some reason highly unknown to Axel, turn to playing matchmaker.

Demyx was having one of those days and Axel was ready to hit him with his math book. He had tests later that day that he could study for, if only he could get this blasted work done.

"Come on, Axel, tell him!"

Axel groaned, silently grateful that the rest of the classroom was engaged in other conversations. He would dread having to explain this to somebody, especially the teacher herself.

"No."

Axel hurriedly drew the line while he still had the full concentration on it. Demyx had barely started, and experience told Axel that it wasn't going to end until the bell.

"Axel, you should,'' he persisted. "I'm see the way you look at him!"

Axel couldn't figure out if he would actually prefer if Demyx was horribly off with his guesses. Axel didn't know how he did it, but Demyx was never wrong. By some logic that defied reality, Demyx was always right. Come to think of it, Demyx on sugar alone defied reality too.

"Demyx, listen to me. Look at me, both eyes, Demyx. Telling him would be stupid."

Axel resisted the urge to curse at his protractor. It was broken to begin with, making the business of drawing parallel lines a great deal harder. The business was complicated anyway, and it would be much easier just to use the old metal compasses. Of course, the school district was afraid that they would run around poking each other with them.

Wonderful school district.

For a minute there was silence and Axel, despite the experience, thought that Demyx had finally given up.

"Why would it be stupid?"

Axel sighed. So much for the idea that he might get to study for the test next period.

"Listen to me, it just would. I don't know if he likes me, and if he doesn't it could kill our friendship. I'd rather have that than nothing."

Demyx shook his head, as if saying that was stupid with just a gesture.

"Who knows what you could be missing, Axel! What if he does like you? I bet he does."

The urge to bang his head off of his desk came immediately and horribly strong, and he almost gave into it. The only thing that stopped him was the other half of his mind was telling him that he had to like him if Demyx said he did. Demyx had never been wrong before, or if he had, the boy had been smart and kept it to himself. The logical part of his mind, that is, the part that wasn't warm and fuzzy with dreams at the moment, reasoned that the other half was being hopelessly optimistic, just like the blonde.

"Demyx, please, let me just finish this, okay? I have a test coming up that I forgot about last night. Besides, you should be doing your math too."

Demyx just laughed.

Ten minutes later, a very peaceful ten minutes, Axel's concentration was interrupted by a poke to the back of his head. It made his thought processes screech to a mind jarring halt, a line veering across the page.

"What?" Axel sighed.

"My parallel lines are intersecting."

Axel blinked. Parallel lines intersecting? Wasn't that sort of contradictory? Axel turned around in his seat. He had to see this drawing that defied logic.

Oh gad the boy had done it. He had followed the instructions the teacher had given them for constructing parallel lines and he had gotten lines that intersected.

Bloody amazing. Just bloody amazing.

"Zexion!" Axel called back. "You won't believe what Demyx managed to do this time."

Zexion made his way up to the front, a small grin on his face. Axel caught it before the boy could hide it. All he got was a glare from the boy, though coming from anybody else it might not have bothered him at all. This was Zexion though. Zexion had the death glare that was capable of killing Medusa herself.

Zexion glanced down at the paper, a frown over his features as he studied it.

"He defied reality again, didn't he?" He asked with a laugh. "So, Demyx, how did you manage to do it this time?"

"I don't know, I followed her directions!" Demyx said defensively as the boy pulled a desk next to his. "My parallel lines are intersecting!"

"Have fun with that,'' Axel said, happily turning back to his math work, as odd as that sounded.

Demyx fought a blush as Zexion put a hand over his to guide him with the protractor.

XXXXX

"That wasn't funny, Axel."

"Sure, it was, Mr. Matchmaker. You got to work with your own match. Thought you'd appreciate it."

"Axel!"

The pyro of a teen laughed. The blush on the blonde's face was well worth it. He grabbed a lunch tray, heading for the line.

"You know you like him anyway. See, you're blushing. If I've learned anything off of you, it's the rule about blushing."

Demyx rolled his eyes as an answer. Axel had forever memorized the blush rule earlier in the year.

"Tell him."

"No."

Axel laughed again, heading into the food area. He looked around at the food. He mentally made a list of what was edible, what was tolerable, and what was deadly.

"Who knows what you could be missing!" Axel quoted him, sending the comment over his shoulder, along with a grin. Demyx stuck his tongue out at him, regardless of the other students around them. "That's mature, Dem."

"Axel, have you seen Roxas around?

Axel jumped, losing the French fries that had been on his tray. Dang Sora and his ability to sneak up on people. In all logic, the boy shouldn't be able to do it at all. He was too loud and too energetic, but somehow he always managed it. It seemed like Sora had a knack for throwing logic out the window too, reality and all.

"No, not until next period,'' Axel answered, his heart racing. His heart was racing for more than one reason now too. Somehow the mere mention of Roxas and gym class had produced the image of Roxas in his gym clothes. Axel tried to fight the image out of his head, but was sorely losing for a couple seconds. "Why?"

"Just thought I'd warn you he's not in the best of moods. You might not want to goof around with him today."

Sora was about to walk away, but Axel wasn't about to let that happen. Sure, Roxas was never in a hyper mood like Sora, but Roxas was never really in a bad mood either.

"What happened?"

"Monster headache. The nurse had him down for eye tests today and he failed both."

Axel couldn't think of anything to say in response to that. Roxas failing both eye tests? He knew Roxas could see, he wasn't blind.

"Failed both? How?"

"Odd, yeah. The nurse is making him go the doctors to get a full test. He's got a monster headache from everything. I wouldn't go messing with him today, Axel."

Axel was about to say something, but was interrupted by the blonde that was beside them.

"See? Axel, this would be the perfect day to tell him!"

The perfect day? Confess feelings for somebody on the day they had a monster headache? That couldn't end well. If Roxas didn't like him back, the kid would only have more of a headache by the time the matter was done.

"Will you please let that go? I'm not."

He tried to stomp away, to make it look final. It had a good effect. It had whenever one of his parents used it against him anyway, along with the occasional stomp away by Leon or Riku.

However, it didn't work if the conversation still kept going after you tried to walk away.

"Tell Roxas what?" Sora asked.

"Tell him that he loves him! It'll be romantic!"

Axel groaned. Demyx's excited shouts had earned them quite a crowd in the food area of the cafeteria. To make it worse, the area was closed off, making the conversation much more noticeable.

Axel grabbed the rest of his lunch in a hurry and went to pay, ignoring various shouts from other students.

XXXXX

"Axel, put the tea down."

He just laughed, fighting with the seal. The seal was an evil all of itself. Once you bought the tea you realized that the money you paid didn't matter, it was that evil little seal that did. That evil little seal was capable of fighting you all period.

Leon groaned when Axel managed to break the seal in record time. Leon just shook his head at the stupid pyro. Most people in the school had learned quickly that the tea was borderline deadly. In all seriousness, it had way too much sugar for the size of the container. Most people learned to stay away from it. Sure, there was the group of odd ball students that was hardly affected by it, Demyx and Sora being two of them, but the vast majority of the student population stayed away from it.

Axel, on the other hand, was determined to test the theory that had literally been accepted as fact in the school, for some insane reason unknown to Leon.

"It ain't going to kill me, Leon. Stop giving me that look."

Leon rolled his eyes. He believed that Axel had a death wish.

Deciding not to watch the teen kill himself with the tea, Leon leaned back in the seat a little. A grin came over his face unchecked. He tilted back just a little more, seeing past a few heads in his way.

"You're looking at Cloud again, aren't you?"

Leon lost his balance in the chair and went tumbling backwards to the floor, earning an odd look from a passing teacher.

"What are you talking about, Demyx?" Leon asked, though it was obvious he knew exactly what the matchmaker was talking about. Leon pulled himself off the floor, tempting to scrape his dignity off the crooked tiles. "Because I don't."

Demyx just laughed. Axel laughed hard enough to snort out the borderline deadly tea. Even Riku, with his nose buried in math homework due the next period, laughed.

"It's obvious, Leon. You're not that sneaky."

Leon groaned. So the matchmaker knew about his crush on Cloud.

This spelled out certain doom. Most certain doom. Just plain ol' doom.

"And so what if I was?" Leon asked, trying to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal at all.

Demyx grinned and Leon could literally see the smiley faces in the air around him. Not good…

"Tell him, Leon!"

"Ha,'' Axel said, taking another swig of the deadly tea. "Laugh at me when he does this, will you?"

"Tell him though, Leon. It's better than just dreaming about it. It could be real!"

Hopeless romantic, Leon thought. He believed that romantic people also were very unrealistic people. Demyx definitely qualified in Leon's mind.

"And what if it doesn't? Having a chance to dream all I want is better than finding out that he doesn't like me at all, right?"

Demyx thought about it for a moment. For a blissful minute Leon believed that Demyx couldn't come up with anything to say about that.

"Well, it's better to know, isn't it? If he doesn't want you, then you can find somebody that does,'' he told Leon, smiling.

That was the hopeless romantic talk again.

Axel recognized the look Leon was giving him, even with the tea killing a couple brain cells. That was the look of panic.

"This is coming from the guy that won't follow his own advice and tell Zexion."

Leon laughed when Demyx blushed and went silent for the rest of the period.

"Still don't believe you drank that crap."

Axel shrugged, drinking the last of it.

"I knew it wasn't going to kill me."

Leon shook his head. He had a couple theories about how Axel was going to die someday, and they all involved in Axel getting himself killed. Leon couldn't come up with a theory where Axel's own choices didn't do himself in like that.

Of course, coming to think about it, Axel had already defied logic for the day, hadn't he?

XXXXX

"Demyx, stop it."

"Leon, tell him! Axel, you should tell Roxas too!"

Somehow, though neither of the other two understood it, Demyx was still in a matchmaker mood after the comment Axel had made. Most people would have stopped it after that, if only for the day. Of course, Demyx wasn't like most people.

While they were changing for gym, Demyx hadn't let Axel or Leon have a single thought uninterrupted. Every other second he was saying something about it.

"Demyx, shut up."

"Roxas isn't dressing for gym today, he's already up there. Axel, if you're going to tell him today you shouldn't dress either."

"And who said I was?" Axel asked. "I'll sit out so I can be with him, but I'm not telling him."

It had been believed up to that point that Demyx couldn't be more annoying than he was in his matchmaker mode. There was nothing he could do to become more annoying than that.

Or so it was thought.

Without any sort of warning, Demyx began to belt out the Wheels on The Bus. Everyone knew that the teen did have a wonderful singing voice, but it seemed that he could shut it off entirely when he wanted to.

Axel and Leon looked at each other, groaning.

Within a minute every boy in the locker room was yelling at Axel and Leon to make Demyx stop.

Another minute later Axel and Leon had given in, but only under the condition that Demyx confess too.

With that, the locker room lapsed into wonderful silence.

XXXX

"Axel, are you feeling okay?"

Axel shook himself out of his thoughts, looking down at Roxas sitting beside him. He laughed at the question.

"How am I feeling? What about you? Sora told me about the nurse."

"Doing better,'' Roxas told him, swallowing the rest. '_Because I'm with you_' was romantic talk, something he expected Demyx to say, not himself. He had been hanging around Demyx too much, he thought. "I just asked because you're so quiet. The last time you were quiet you were plotting revenge on Leon. You're not doing that again, are you?"

Axel laughed again. He remembered that. Leon had taken his cd player so he couldn't sing along with Shakira. So he plotted revenge and at the end of the day Leon's locker had exploded into the hallway, making him stay after school to clean it up. Now there was a mutual agreement about cd players and lockers.

"No, not plotting revenge, Roxas. Just thinking."

Roxas rose an eyebrow at that. That was almost as bad as plotting revenge.

Axel looked around the gym. Demyx and Zexion were up on the track. Somewhere behind them were Leon and Cloud. Axel absentmindedly watched a volleyball go sailing through the air, barely missing a couple people up on the track.

"One of these days it's going to hit somebody up there head on. If it's Leon he'll just throw it back down at one of them."

Axel shook out of thoughts again.

"Sorry. What did you say?"  
Roxas looked at him. Whatever he was thinking about had him pretty good.

"Hey, Axel, what are you thinking about?"

Axel's eyes shot up from the tiles. He glanced up at Demyx, who sent him a thumbs up from the track. He sighed. It was now or never, wasn't it? He promised himself if he got through confessing alive, he'd ban that phrase.

"Roxas,'' he started, then stopped. "I think-" Roxas looked up at him and he was caught in the boy's eyes for a second. "I love you,'' he finished hurriedly, glancing away at once.

For a long agonizing minute Axel thought Roxas wasn't going to say anything, just leave him in silence. He opened his mouth to apologize and hope to salvage the relationship, but his words were cut off by a kiss.

"Axel, I think I love you too,'' Roxas said quietly.

Axel looked down at him.

"Really? You're not joking?"

Roxas laughed.

"Really."

XXXX

"Leon, did I just see Roxas and Axel kissing?"

And what was the proper answer to that? Leon didn't know, that's for sure. The idea sent his brain around in circles. Should he act surprised or should he just say he knew it was going to happen? No, the last one would make him explain it.

Leon gave up on it.

Unfortunately, Cloud didn't..

"So which one of them confessed? Leon, you know."

Dang the blonde, Leon thought. Why did he always have to be right? He sighed mentally. Wasn't that why he liked Cloud in the first place? The boy wasn't dumb.

"Axel did,'' Leon told him.

"Why now? He's liked Roxas for the last couple months."

"Demyx wouldn't leave him alone." Cloud raised an eyebrow and shook his head. Leon had forgotten that Cloud didn't know Demyx as well as him, Axel, and Riku did. "He's a bit of a matchmaker."  
Cloud laughed and Leon laughed with him before he could stop himself. Some people had a contagious laugh. Those people were capable of making you laugh in the middle of a shouting match. Cloud was one of those people.

"Did he ever get you on it?"  
Okay, so he loved the fact that Cloud was smart, but he also loved it when that brain wasn't used against him.

Cloud looked at the yellow line on the track ahead of them. He didn't know why he had bothered to ask Leon if Demyx ever had. It wasn't going to matter even if he did, Leon was never going to like Cloud.

"Yes, he has. Today even."

Cloud looked up. Despite his best efforts, he could feel the hope rising in him. He hated that feeling. It was that wishful thinking feeling, and he knew would never do anything but get him hurt in the end.

"Who?"

Leon was silent for a couple minutes. He decided only to answer when he saw Demyx coming up around the track with Zexion. He figured that it was best to say something before Demyx got up near them and decided to for him.

"You."

Cloud wasn't sure he had heard him right. No, he couldn't have, he thought. He must have still been daydreaming.

"What?"

Leon mentally groaned. It was hard enough to say it once, let alone a second time.

"You."

"Leon,-"

"Cloud, I love you."

It was at that moment a pair of girls passed them up smiling. Leon groaned aloud. Ruddy fan girls of Kingdom High. Cloud laughed and pulled him into a kiss. The girls got a laugh out of it while Leon blushed a couple different shades of red.

"What was that for?" Leon asked.

Cloud shrugged, beginning to walk again.

"Might as well give them a show,'' he said, grinning. "Besides...Leon, I love you too."

XXXX

"Has this high school gone crazy today?" Zexion asked Demyx. "First Axel and Roxas, and now Leon and Cloud. Were there Zebra cakes spiked?"  
Demyx laughed, though it didn't come out the same as usual. He was nervous. Axel and Leon had confessed, and now it was his turn. He was pretty sure that the two of them would ring his neck if he didn't.

"Must be."  
Zexion looked at Demyx, an eyebrow raised. The boy wasn't himself. Normally if they were on the track he would be a lap or two ahead of him. The blond liked to run and up here he could certainly do it, with the only risk being getting hit by the occasional rogue volleyball from below.

"Demyx, did you have something to do with that?"

Oh yes, Zexion knew about Demyx's matchmaker moods. He had heard from Sora and Riku that Demyx was in such a mood again. It would be like the boy to get Axel and Leon to do it. Zexion knew he had been trying for at least a month, and sooner or later the two teens would crack. Zexion wondered what Demyx had done to finally get them to do it.

"Maybe."

Zexion laughed at the grin on Demyx's face.

"So you did. What did it take? Riku's told me that you've been going at it for at least a month."

"Well, I started singing 'Wheels on the Bus'."

Zexion twitched. He couldn't help it. That song was completely awful, and in his personal opinion evil.

"That's all?"

"Well, they said I had to do something too, but yeah, that was basically it."

Zexion smiled, looking at the blush that had developed on Demyx's face.

"And what was that? It's got you blushing pretty good."

That only made him blush harder.

"Well, they said I had to confess too."

"Wait, what? You like somebody?"

Zexion groaned inwardly. The question had come out with a sound of hurt to it. Sure, he was, but he didn't want Demyx too know that. Zexion was quiet and shy, and didn't know a way to tell Demyx that he liked him. To know that the blond liked somebody hurt, because it certainly wouldn't be him.

"Yeah,'' Demyx said quietly.

"When are you confessing? There's only two periods left after this one."

"This one,'' Demyx said immediately.

"What?"

Demyx stopped on the track and Zexion did at once as well. Demyx looked up from the yellow line that marked the track and locked eyes with Zexion.

Demyx took a deep breath. He had to say it now.

"I like you."

Demyx couldn't read the look on Zexion's face. Normally he was pretty good at it.

All at once Zexion laughed and grinned. Demyx could have sworn that it was a laugh of relief. Before he could say something about it, Zexion pulled him forward and kissed him.

The world around them came rushing back suddenly with the sound of giggling. Demyx opened his eyes and found himself looking at two freshman fan girls.

XXXX

The six of them stood out in the hall, waiting for the bell to ring. The fan girls weren't that far away either, though a glare from Zexion and Leon kept them at bay easily.

The bell was late again. Or the clocks were off again. Either way, it was one of them.

Everybody was pretty relaxed until Sora came around the corner to join them. Axel noticed the headphones around his neck, blaring at an inhumane level. Axel could hear the lyrics. He only caught a phrase, but immediately sought the nearby bag of gym equipment.

"Axel, what's wrong?" Roxas asked.

"I heard it."

The group exchanged looks, but nobody seemed to know what he was talking about.

"What did you hear?"  
"Now or never."

Sora walked to the next class with several square marks of a tennis racquet on his face.

**Like? I think it's a little off myself, but yeah, I'm happy with it. Let me know what you think. Please review, I love my reviewers to pieces.**

**Okay, first off, challenges are still closed. I want to get at least one more done before I open that again.**

**Let's see, real life references. The tea, first off. I don't think it can kill anyone, but it does have way too much sugar. I could probably drink it and act like a complete goober all during my gym period. The parallel lines intersecting raises hand That was me. I seriously poked one of my best friends in the back, in the middle of class, and I sit up front, to tell her that my parallel lines intersected. Let's just say me and the protractor don't get along all that well. And yep, our school doesn't let us have metal ones because they're afraid we'll go around poking each other with them. My school scares me. The volleyballs in the gym lol We currently have one stuck in the ceiling runners, or whatever they're called, and the ceiling is really high in our gym. Somebody actually kicked it up there and it's stuck. Hope I didn't confuse anybody with the gym layout. Ours is weird.**

**So leave me a nice review, please? Tell me what you think! Till next time, though hopefully never that long again.**


	11. Fairytale Story

**Hello everyone! Sort of running late on this update again, ain't I? Lol**

**Let's see, this chapter is from ASKInfinity's challenge, and I hope she likes!**

**A couple notes here before we begin. First off, if you read, please please review, even if it's two words, k? It makes me extremely happy and ready to write the next chapter -**

**Okay, of another note, I do have a fictionpress account under Writer of Eternal Stories and would greatly appreciate any feedback that can be given for my stories there. And I have a livejournal, where I record everything about updates, such as what's keeping me, so feel free to go over there, it's under the same name :)**

**And final note, thanks goes to my new beta Yumeki-chan!**

**Apologize if the formatting is screwy. It's being a little #$$#((#, ahem, something I can't put here or the rating will go up just because of that.**

**Okay, I'm shutting up for now XD**

Chapter 11- Fairytale Story

Cloud was having quite a day. In fact, it was merely noon and he was more than ready to go home. And if it wasn't for the fact that his truck was parked by an outside camera, it was very likely that he would have already tried to break for home.  
The reason? Well, it had started off with the beginnings of psych. Sounded simple. The project idea had seemed fun even. Until he got paired with the one person in the room that he didn't want to be with. Axel. A very stressed out Axel even. For some reason, unknown to Cloud, the pyro was stressed to the point that he simply didn't have the mental capacity for anything other than the notebook he was carrying around with him, sort of like an extended limb or lifeline. Cloud had tried to ask him why, but was promptly ignored. Second period was English. A "do-absolutely-nothing' class, suddenly turned serious by reading Julius Caesar. Cloud didn't see a reason for it. It was practically another language anyway , so why did they have to bother with it? To make matters worse, the teacher himself answered that he didn't know. And then there was math, and so on and so forth, until Cloud was standing only a few feet away from his lunch table staring at a pile of food. More precisely, it was the pile of food in front of Axel.  
In all honesty, it freaked him out.  
Sitting in a pile haphazardly in front of Axel, were three cans of Coke, two cans of Red Bull, three chocolate brownies, and a pack of Sour Patch Kids. They were all in trouble.  
Despite a small voice in his head yelling at him quite loudly in warning, Cloud sat at his seat beside Axel. He found himself suddenly wishing that he hadn't agreed to this seat at all.  
"Axel, what's wrong?" Cloud tried again.  
And again was completely ignored. For one second Cloud thought he was going to get an answer when the teen looked up, but Axel was instead reaching for a can of Coke.  
Oh yes, they were all in some serious trouble.  
He bit into his sandwich, hoping that if they didn't poke Axel that he wouldn't poke them either, though his version of poking would be somewhat different at his stage in the game. It would be a lot more deadly.  
Cloud saw Leon coming and waved at him. Leon offered a small smile, or as far as smile ever got with Leon anyway, his hands full. A minute later Leon was making his way to his seat at the other side of Axel, going past Cloud. Cloud looked up from his sandwich just in time to stop him. The teen raised an eyebrow at the hand on his shirt. Cloud gestured to Axel. Leon's eyes widened at the pile, which had diminished already by a brownie and half a can of Coke. He gladly took the seat next to Cloud, preferring not to take risk his life with the stressed out pyro.  
"What's up with him?" Leon asked.  
"I don't know, he hasn't answered me any time I've asked him, and he looks like he'll kill the first person to mess with him."  
With that stated, the table remained pretty peaceful even as the rest of them arrived and took their seats. Axel seemed to be tuning pretty much everything out.  
Leon was the first to notice the evil coming right towards them. Ultimate evil. Ultimate evil in the from of a person. Ultimate evil in the form of a person carrying cookies. Without realizing it, Leon twitched.  
Then he twitched again.  
Cloud caught what appeared to be spontaneous twitching out of the corner of his eyes. The last time he had seen Leon twitch so rapidly was a month before when all of them had been playing Guitar Hero II. It had been Demyx's game and when Leon went to play, who had never so much as seen the thing before, he had failed to mention that it was set on expert mode. Much to the group's amusement, none of Leon's hand movements along the guitar had managed to be right, but all of his twitches were exactly on. Immediately following the memory of the twitching, Cloud remembered how Leon had threatened, in great detail, to kill Demyx with the plastic guitar.  
So quite naturally, Cloud was alarmed to see Leon twitching again. Cloud looked up and, in a deal of great hurry, looked back down again.  
Riku across from him noticed the odd display of behavior from Cloud and the direction in which it was aimed. He turned around, but through some particular bout of luck, turned around just in time to see the evil right behind him. He jumped and Demyx, next to him, laughed.  
"Girl scout cookies! Who wants to buy girl scout cookies?"  
The loud obnoxious voice was enough to jerk Axel out of whatever land his mind was currently in, making him look up in alarm, his eyes wide. Zexion, across from him, was the first to see it and become aware of the current situation.  
"Girl scout cookies! Who wants to buy girl scout cookies?"  
The evil bringer of the girl scout cookies was making her way around the table was currently standing beside Leon, continuing her shout.  
"Yuffie..." Leon started slowly, one eye on Axel, who had stopped moving entirely.  
Yuffie, however, ignored Leon entirely and continued her shout. Now adding more to it.  
"Buy some yummy girl scout cookies!! Buy some yummy girl scout cookies!! They'll keep the squirrels at bay and keep you safe!!"  
Somehow, through at least another minute's worth of song, Yuffie had convinced over half of the table to buy the cookies. Cloud personally believed that Riku and Leon had bought cookies simply to get the hyperactive girl to walk away. He also believed that Sora and Demyx had bought them because of the song. His reason? Demyx and Sora were currently muttering about evil teddy bears that would sneak out of closets and attack them with tea kettles, but now wouldn't because they had bought the life saving girl scout cookies.  
Five more minutes passed, and with that passed two chocolate brownies, two cans of Coke, two Cans of Red Bull, and the whole bag of Sour Patch Kids. As the lunch ticked away, Axel seemed to be getting more stressed and stressed.  
As Roxas approached the lunch table, with more than half of the period gone, he was muttering under his breath about math and making up tests. His teacher hadn't exactly gotten the point that he didn't have any study halls, nor was he able to stay after school. So against his own will, he had to sacrifice most of a lunch period that he would have much rather ate in.  
He hadn't noticed anything odd about the lunch table at all as he plopped himself next to Axel, helping himself to Demyx's new stash of girl scout cookies. It was only as he was done with one cookie and onto the next that he questioned the presence of the cookies.  
"Yuffie's been here again, hasn't she?"  
"Yeah, you should have been here! You should have bought yourself a box so that  
you'd be safe from the evil teddy bears!"  
Roxas was about to ask for clarification from Axel, but was caught off guard by exactly what Axel was doing when he turned. He had expected him to be eating, or working on homework due in later periods. What he did not expect was to see him hunched over a notebook, one that didn't belong to any class subject, and writing like he was about to die in six minutes. Wow.  
Roxas raised an eyebrow, curiosity growing.  
"Can I see, Axel?"  
If Axel could jump out of his skin, Roxas thought that he would have just done it. It looked like he had tried. The notebook was shoved further away from him and Axel was writing faster. Which was probably phisically impossible.  
"Geez, what is that?"  
Roxas decided that he better stop trying to read the notebook. Axel was currently writing on Cloud's back to keep it away from him.  
A minute before the bell, the notebook, with a two page's worth of small cramped handwriting, was shoved under his nose. He rose an eyebrow at Axel, but looked down to read anyway.  
He figured he was grinning like an idiot, but chose to ignore that strong idea.  
The bell rang and he stood up, absentmindedly throwing his bag over his shoulder, and followed Axel out of the cafeteria. With his eyes glued on the somewhat hard to read writing, he nearly collided once into Yuffie, but was saved at the last second by Axel.  
Roxas looked up at Axel, handing the notebook back to him, unsure what to say. That was definitely not what he expected to be reading and it seemed odd to have come out of Axel.  
"It's cheesy, I know," Axel said, blushing a little. "But, what do you say, go out with me?"  
Roxas laughed, now knowing for a fact that he was grinning like a complete idiot.  
"Yeah." He tugged down on Axel's collar and kissed him. "You can be my knight in shining armor anytime."  
Roxas turned around, realizing he was now running pretty late for class. He heard a relieved laugh behind him, rather loud and shakey. He turned for a second and was suddenly greeted with the sight of Axel doing a cartwheel.  
His mind flashed back to the wrappers and cans that had been on the table. Oh no, was his first thought, followed by a small grin. After all, Axel never had that much unless he was completely stressed out about something, and asking somebody out with a fairytale was quiet a stresser, wasn't it?

**So how do you like? Drop a review please!!**

**Okay, real life connections, Julius Caesar for one. Blast the play. And it was such a goof off class and whatnot. One of my friends is threatening to volunteer me for a part, and I've also threatened to hit him over the head with the nearest book XD**

**Let's see, being extremely stressed and ready to explode if somebody poked me (raises hand) a day last week I did that. I was trying to finish a poem, also on fiction press now, and needed it done that night. I was hyped up on Coke, chocolate brownies and more chocolate. I scared the people at my table, or the ones that don't know me as well lol.**

**Drop me a review and, as of right now, the challenges are open again!**


	12. Snowy Schemes

**Hello everyone!! Sorry about the really long wait on this one. Life got in the way, then almost failing math got in the way, and then the lazyness of summer got in the way, but yeah, nothing too good for an excuse lol Hugs go to the people that are still sticking with this story even with the long delay in an update. **

**Okay, this one is off of Pikagalmish's challenge, and I hope you like :)**

**Oh, and this chapter is really long too, sort of got out of hand I guess, so hopefully that makes up for the wait too. And this chapter didn't go through my beta, I was having trouble getting a hold of her. So if there's goofs then please bear with me. I combed through it, but that doesn't guarantee everything XD**

**Disclaimer: I don't own. If I did, the new KH would be out already.**

Ch12- Snowy Schemes

It was the big day. Not just an big day, but _the _big day. It was one of those big days that had been planned out almost two weeks in advance down to the last possible detail that could be planned, of course allowing for the goofs, as best as possible, of the members involved that actually didn't know they were involved. It was one of those big days that had the potential to go really, really wrong but also had the potential to go really, really well. It was also one of those big days that left the master planner extremely stressed out, and such stressed master planners should not be allowed to drive because of it.

"Leon, relax,'' Riku said from the passenger seat. "I know this is an important day for you, and I'm fully behind you, but you can't kill us both with your car."

Leon pulled into a parking spot at the school. Rather, he tried to pull into one and was currently hoping he had. There was a fresh coat of snow on the parking lot and the yellow lines were now invisible. More than once during the winter he had come back out to find that he wasn't parked in a space after all, but over top of two of them. It was halfway through winter and people had adjusted to it quickly, instead electing to park beside another car as best they could, hoping that the first car in the line was in fact in a space. Not the greatest way as far as safety was concerned, but the best way possible without the snow plows that school should be using but wasn't.

"I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sorry, Riku. Thanks for putting up with me today."

Riku laughed, tugging the seat belt off.

"It's not a matter of putting up with you when you get like this, it's a matter of surviving you. You are scary when you get stressed out like this."

It wasn't the first time Leon had been told that, that's for sure. He had been told that before at least several times by all of his friends, many times a day during last year's finals. He laughed.

"This means a lot to me. I'm probably going to be like this most of the day,'' Leon warned him.

Riku shrugged, smiling at the brunette. He reached into the back and grabbed his bag

"I'll survive. I'm not going to just walk away from you for the day, if that's what you're suggesting. I'll be here for the whole ride, no matter how insane it gets."

Quickly, hearing the warning bell go off through the school's speakers, they both checked the back seat for anything they had forgotten. More than once they had left something in the back, only to realize it much later in the day. Needless to say, the teachers did not appreciate the excuse of 'it's in my boyfriend's car', as Riku had found out. The first time he had to tell one of the teachers that it had Mr. Ansem. It was the only time that any student remembered Ansem without a response to somebody's excuse.

"This can't be easy for you though,'' Leon said when they met at the front of the car.

"I'll deal with it, I told you that,'' Riku laughed. "I love you."

Pulling his coat closed, he leaned up and kissed Leon.

The bell echoed through the school's speakers again.

"I love you too,'' Leon told him. "And we're late again."

-

Riku was glad that what Leon had planned was actually working so far. At the end of first period Riku knew for sure that everything was going okay. If it hadn't been, Leon would have had a heart attack, or something else so loud it was audible from every corner of the school. Leon wasn't really one to panic, but Riku had learned the hard way once that the teen was quite loud when he actually did.

Naturally, Leon had been hesitant to bring Riku into the actual tricky parts of the plan. While the brunette was confident that everything would go okay, he knew well enough that four of the members involved in the whole thing, the ones that didn't know about any of it, could react pretty badly if things went wrong in the long run. Leon would rather have it so his boyfriend wasn't brought into that end of it. Sora had been the one to convince him otherwise finally. Sora, despite all of the moments where he looked like an idiot, really did have a hand at convincing people. It had been him to convince one of their teachers earlier in the year to actually put off the midterm for another week so they could study.

The school hallways sucked, and that was the response, in some form or another, that you could get from any student. The school was too small for the amount of students it was holding, and soon it would have to rebuilt by law, though Riku's grade would be lucky enough to avoid it by a year. Anyone in that grade really did consider themselves lucky for graduating when they did. They had heard about what had happened when the school had been remolded last time, and nobody was to eager to experience learning in trailers first hand.

The hallways required survival instincts, that much anybody could tell you. That was why most of the incidents that occurred happened with freshman, who had been there long enough to be freaked out by the hallways but not long enough to learn how to survive them. Riku had gained the instincts required quite some time ago, but he still found it nearly impossible to actually find anyone in particular in the mess of people that crowded the small hallways.

For a split second he saw the two he was looking for, and he was going to make sure he didn't lose them again.

"Zexion! Roxas!" He called out.

The two of them stopped farther along in the hallway, waiting for him. He sped up, and had the nagging idea that he might have elbowed somebody in the back of the head.

"Do you know why Leon's so stressed today?" Zexion asked him once he had caught up.

"We figured that you'd be the one to know,'' Roxas added. "Being his boyfriend and all."

In all honesty, Riku wasn't really sure if he could pull this off. Roxas and Zexion weren't dumb, and both of them were used to Leon's antics. From his understanding, they had all known each other for years. Zexion had been friends with Leon since kindergarten, and Roxas since second grade. Fooling them wasn't going to be easy at all. From what he could tell, Zexion and Roxas had both gained the ability to see what Leon was up to before he even got the chance to do it, and Riku didn't find that fact encouraging one bit.

"I noticed, but I don't know why,'' Riku told them. "I think he's planning something for me for Christmas or New Year's. I told him not to, but you know how Leon is."

They laughed. They had had quite enough experience with Leon's antics.

"That definitely sounds like him,'' Roxas agreed. "So what's up, Riku?"

"He asked me to do a favor for him. He wanted me to give you guys these,'' he said, handing them each a folded note.

"What's it about?" Zexion asked him, an eyebrow raised. "I only trust Leon as far as I can throw him, and throwing him isn't something that anybody with a brain would actually try."

Riku sucked at lying, and he knew he did.

"I don't know, to be honest with you guys. Leon asked that I didn't look at them, so I didn't."

The bell rang over head and Riku sighed. Late yet again during the day.

-

Axel was currently having one of those days. The kind of day where everything insists on trying to kill the person just caught up in it.

It had started off by him waking up late. About fifteen minutes late, which was really bad. It meant that he would have to rush around to grab his things. He had groaned, and then set about the task ahead of him. The second he had stood up his legs had given out from underneath him.

The reason? His father had insisted on moving a couch yesterday. Not just any couch, but the biggest couch that had ever come into the house. For an hour and a half they had tried to move the couch through a doorway that Axel knew it wasn't going to go through. He had known it already, and after a half hour he wanted to set the piece of furniture on fire. The only things that they had to show from that mess were pulled muscles, a rip in the carpet, and a hole in the ceiling, and the old couch still sitting in the front room.

Next thing that had happened that morning that had tried to kill him was remembering that he hadn't done the math homework. So he had rushed around to get everything done so he could sit down and bluff his way through it in five minutes. Then he had rushed out to the bus stop, later than he had ever tried to before, and remembered the English homework on his way.

Needless to say, it hadn't gotten much better once he had gotten to school.

Currently he was staring at his locker, wanting to set the dang thing on fire. So far he had resisted the urge, and he felt that he had earned the right to set something on fire that was annoying him. The locker was stuck, yet again.

"Axel, your locker's stuck again? What do you do to this thing?"

Axel jumped, coming out of his thoughts in a rush. He spun around and found himself looking at Demyx, who was laughing at the look on his face.

"You scared the crap out of me."

"I kind of figured that. Deer in the headlights look,'' he told him. "You looked like you were mentally setting your locker on fire again. Seriously, what do you do to this thing? Axel! It's caught on your English book!"

Oh yeah…Axel had a flashback of slamming the locker shut Friday, ignoring the fact that the English book was obviously caught in it. He had done it almost every Friday, rushing out of the school and leaving the mess for Monday morning. He knew better than to tell Demyx that. He was pretty sure that he would receive one of the blond's rare glares if he did.

Considering the way his day was going, it was pretty natural that he was wary when he saw Sora coming up to him and Demyx. He didn't know that much about Sora. What he knew came down to pretty much this: Sora was dangerous on any sort of sugar, he had his moments of genius, hidden among great moments of idiocy, and he was apparently the cousin or something of the guy that Axel considered the hottest in the school, Roxas.

Demyx, oblivious to Sora behind him, was tugging at the bottom of the locker, trying to free the poor nearly torn English book. Without warning the book jerked free and sent the blond flying backwards, landing on none other than Sora.

"Oh, sorry, Sora. I didn't see you there. I was fighting with Axel's locker, again."

Sora smiled at both of them, climbing up from the floor and avoiding several people's feet.

"I was just coming over to see you guys. I wanted to give you something."

Demyx and Axel shared a look, their eyebrows raised.

"You wanted to give us something?"

"Yeah,'' he said, handing them each a folded note. He turned back around and began walking away from the pair. "Don't forget about them!"

"You know, Dem,'' Axel began, watching the brunette make his way back through the crowd with ease despite how crowded it was. "I'm not too sure I like how this day is going so far. It's not even lunch yet. This amount of things shouldn't be able to go wrong before lunch."

-

Yuffie sat back with her chocolate chip cookies, a hallmark of her mischief, and watched the scene going on in front of her. She was close enough to see the action, but far enough that she couldn't be suspected of anything, and wouldn't until sometime tomorrow as she figured it, and by then anything could go wrong already would have.

She was pretty well known in Kingdom High for her assortment of skills, a somewhat random collection once she listed them. She was good at almost anything anyone needed to be done. Since her freshman year she had been running what was almost a business, and the only person to share in her profit was Sora, who had become her assistant, and the lesser known of the pair.

Despite the fact that she had done what Leon had paid her to do, she was still interested in what was going on. Sure, she didn't know exactly what Leon was up to, but she could guess that maybe no one but Riku did besides Leon anyway, so she was pretty content with the knowledge she did have.

"The school newspaper wants to do a bit on new year resolutions. Do you have any, Zexion?"

Zexion looked up from his book, which he had been managing to read while eating with a good skill at multitasking. Yuffie noted his slightly startled look, and it was only slight because Zexion had become a master at controlling expressions like that. She figured that he might have just disguised a heart attack when he looked up and saw the blond haired interviewer.

"Oh,'' Zexion said, his mind still trying to start up again, hurrying to find something intelligent to say. "I don't really make new year resolutions. I don't see the use in doing it, to be honest with you, Demyx."

Yuffie shifted in her seat, moving so she could see Demyx's face. There was a look of confusion painted on it.

"You don't? Why not?"

"Well, no one keeps up with them anyway. For the first week everyone is really excited about them, but then they forget about it until the next year."

"Oh, don't listen to him,'' Leon said from beside Zexion, suddenly jumping into the conversation. Yuffie wasn't too sure if Leon was aware of the subtle glare he was receiving from the teen beside him, or if he would care if he did. "He's just shy about saying that his new year's resolution is to confess to the person he likes."

"Leon, shut up, he doesn't need to know that I-"

"Zexion, I'm sure that whoever the girl is, she'll like you too."

Quickly, with the slate haired boy watching after him, Demyx walked back to his lunch table with Axel.

Biting into one of her favorite cookies, Yuffie wondered if Zexion, the psych student that he was, had seen how obviously fake and strained Demyx's smile was. Even she could see it. If he didn't see it now, she figured that he would have to see it when he looked back on it later, after everything Leon had planned had passed. Hindsight is 20/20, she thought. There was no way he could ignore it then, and he'd wonder how he had ever missed it in the first place.

"Leon, you can stop trying to make me confess to Demyx. It isn't going to happen."

"It almost did,'' Roxas said from the other side of Leon, laughing. "If Demyx had interrupted two seconds later he would have known for sure."

"You find it funny now, but wait until he tries to get you to confess to Axel again, then you see how funny this is."

-

"Riku, you need to relax."

Riku look at Leon, an eyebrow raised. He could not believe that Leon had just said that to him. He would have thought he had heard him wrong, if it wasn't for the smile on Leon's face.

Over the course of the whole school day Leon had been stressed to the point of possibly giving himself a heart attack. Big days like this left the master planner really, really stressed, followed by a period of extreme confidence. Riku couldn't decide what was worse or which one of them was more of a hazard to the plan that was still in progress. He was now left with the responsibility of worrying about whether everything was going to be okay.

"One of us has to worry. You stopped, so it's my turn."

Leon laughed.

"Everything is going to be okay. You don't have to worry. Besides, you've been righting with that scarf for the last ten minutes."

Riku sighed, knowing that his boyfriend was right.

Leon helped him with the scarf, ignoring the slight glare he was receiving. Riku was pretty cute when he was fighting with the scarf, Leon had to admit that, but he couldn't let him keep going at it. Pretty soon the boy was bound to give up on the scarf and leave the café without it, and with the weather the way it was, he was going to be sick most likely by the time he got back. Riku was not a fun person when he was sick, and Leon knew he would end up receiving most of the grumpiness himself. It was cold enough outside to give him some sort of illness by the time he had made it back to the café.

The door to the backroom of the café flew open, Sora racing in. Riku and Leon turned around from the mirror to look at him, and both of them stared.

"Kairi, got you, didn't she?" Riku asked warily.

Sora nodded.

All winter Kairi had been harboring an obsession with Eskimo coats, as Riku himself had taken to calling them. Sora, however, wouldn't call it an obsession. He called it a deadly obsession. Almost once a week Kairi had managed to stuff him inside one of them. Sora looked out from underneath the fuzzy ring of fur around the hood.

"And she isn't that far behind me, just to warn you. We might want to get out of here before she gets you. She told me that you have to look cute when you're pairing people up."

Riku shot a look to Leon, one that read along the lines of 'look what you're getting me into'.

"You're going to get me killed doing this, I know you are. It's either going to be Kairi with her Eskimo coats or one of your friends once they begin figuring things out,'' Riku muttered.

"No, that isn't going to happen. Relax."

"Can I remind you guys that she's only a few minutes behind me?"

Leon pulled Riku close for a goodbye kiss quickly.

"You will be perfectly okay. Promise. In about two hours everything is going to be over."

"So you say. It'll be over for us, but it's just going to be beginning for everyone else."

"That's the beauty of it."

"Seriously, guys, she was only a few minutes behind me, and that was only because she dropped her car keys. You know how fast she's capable of driving. She'll be here any second."

Leon was definitely aware of how fast the red head could drive. He had nearly been run over by her before on his way to school. He had to agree with Sora, they would be all in severe danger of the Eskimo coats if they didn't get moving.

"Go on, Riku. They're probably there already, and we can't give them the time to run off before you get there. That would spoil everything."

-

Demyx was cold. He didn't like being cold. He liked snow and snowmen and snow angels and snow ball fights and he liked water basically in all forms, but winter also brought cold and that was one thing he didn't like for sure. He would have been ecstatic if winter suddenly decided to keep its snow but have the temperature of summer.

"Dem, how did we get dragged into this?" Axel asked, thinking aloud.

He looked over at Axel, who was wearing a light jacket despite the cold weather. Lucky him, Dem thought, if I did that I would freeze.

"Sora. That's all I know. Sora gave us the notes, so of course we came, because neither of us had anything better to do tonight, and now we're here in the park with our crushes.''

"If I ever see that brunette again I'll kill him."

Demyx laughed.

"I doubt he was the only that actually came up everything. He's not an idiot, but this isn't his sort of thing. Far from it I'd say."

"And how would you know?" Axel asked with an eyebrow raised.

"I actually have a class with him, we don't really talk, but I listen to him."

Across the small playground Zexion and Roxas sat, glancing over at the other two occasionally.

"I will kill him for this,'' Zexion muttered. "He's behind it too, I know he is."

"You will not kill him,'' Roxas objected, causing him to look over with a raised eyebrow. "I will kill him."

"No, I have more of a claim to kill him than you do, so I don't want to hear it. He's been after me longer than he's been after you."

Roxas laughed.

"Only because you can't deal with energy drinks without blurting out stuff like that. Energy drinks are like drugs to you. It's your own fault Leon's been after you longer."

Talking was interrupted for both pairs by the sound of an approaching vehicle. Rather, as it was quickly discovered, two vehicles. Further more, it was also discovered that it was two horse drawn sleighs. That particular bit of information left all four of them staring.

"Leon is going to die for this. I am going to kill him,'' Zexion muttered again, seeing the two drivers.

"Last time I trust Riku not to be involved with something,'' Roxas added.

Axel and Demyx watched the approach of the sleighs with shared stares.

"Last time I trust that Sora, I swear,'' Axel groaned.

To the greater shock of Axel and Demyx, who were far less experienced with Leon and could not see it coming, the two sleighs stopped by them first. Sora smiled at the pair, tugging at the Eskimo hood so he could see them easier. After a brief struggle with the hood, his face and his brown spikes emerged.

"Hop on in, one each."

Demyx and Axel looked at each other first, but reluctantly did climb up onto the sleighs.

"I swear Leon is going to die for this,'' Zexion muttered as the sleighs stopped in front of them

"Oh yes, definitely. He's pretty deadly with those matchmaker moods of his. I just know he's doing this to thank us."

"The irony of that. He's trying to thank us for setting him up with Riku. Didn't we tell him before to stop trying to thank us?"

"More than enough times,'' Roxas agreed.

Not bothering to wait for one of the drivers to tell them what to do, they both climbed up into the appropriate sleighs.

The effect of being in such a close space with your crush, and when there's really no one else to break the silence, is quite nerve wracking. None of the four knew what to say, and rather decided to look at the scenery they were passing. It wasn't the most interesting scenery, since all of them had lived around there for years, but it was better than trying to forge a conversation out of thin air.

-

Demyx didn't really know what to say when he ended up sitting across Zexion at the café. His evening had taken quite a turn that he wasn't prepared for at all, or had even dared to day dream about.

"So,'' Zexion said after a minute of awkward silence. "What do you want to eat?"

Demyx hoped he wasn't blushing. If someone would have told him that morning that he would be sitting at a café table with his crush and sharing a meal, he would have called them absolutely crazy. Zexion didn't seem to be the kid that was actually capable of things like that. As much as Demyx adored Zexion, he didn't know that much about him, as he was realizing now.

"I just want a hot chocolate,'' Demyx told him. He saw Zexion reaching into his pocket and shook his head. "I'll get it."

"Are you sure?" Zexion asked immediately. "I could get it, it really wouldn't be a problem. Really."

Zexion groaned inwardly. To Demyx it had to sound like he was rambling, that's what it sounded like to him anyway. So there was no logical reason why it shouldn't have sounded any different for the blond.

"No, I'll pay for it. It's not a problem. It really isn't."

For a minute they looked at each other and then they both started laughing.

"Here we are, literally on a date and we can't even manage to enjoy ourselves because we're so nervous."

"And neither of us planned for this to happen anyway,'' Demyx added.

"Yeah, Leon did.''

"Leon?" Demyx asked him, an eyebrow raised. "How's Leon involved in any of this?"

Zexion laughed, shaking his head. He suddenly realized how odd it must sound to somebody that didn't know the teen that well.

"Trust me on that. He's trying to thank me and Roxas for pairing him up with Riku."

"I've seen those two together. They're really happy. You've helped them to get together?"

"Me and Roxas,'' he said, nodding over in the direction of where Axel and Roxas were currently sitting. "He keeps trying to thank both of us now."

"So he's trying to thank you, and somehow I'm involved in this?"

Zexion blushed, groaning. He knew he was smart, the grades and everyone else told him, but he would beg to differ when it came to moments like this. Being by his crush was like drinking Red Bull and then trying to keep things quiet, it was never really going to work well, no matter how much he was now wishing it would.

He sighed. What was the use of trying to keep things quiet now anyway? Demyx knew he had to be here for a reason, and if he wasn't just giving him a chance to tell him now himself, he was going to figure out pretty soon.

"He's trying to pair us up now,'' Zexion muttered.

Demyx laughed. He leaned forward and gave Zexion a light peck on the lips.

"Well, we don't want to let him down, do we?"

-

"What are they doing?"

"That would be called kissing, Axel,'' Roxas said, still feeling rather nervous and his sarcasm was trying to naturally make up for it. He looked down at the menu. "And by the looks of it, we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other. I think they're going to be glued together for quite a while. Zexion's liked Demyx for ages now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We didn't know for sure that Demyx liked him back, we didn't think he did at all, actually."

"Of course he does,'' Axel said back immediately. "He made sure to go over and interview him during lunch, after all. He came back pretty quiet though."

Roxas told the passing waitress what he wanted and turned back to Axel.

"I think I know why. Leon was picking on him about liking Demyx, but he never said who though. Zexion almost did accidentally, but your friend interrupted a second before he did. Demyx thought they were talking about a girl,'' Roxas laughed. "Doesn't really matter now though, does it? Looks like they're together for good."

There was an awkward pause between them.

Axel swallowed. Somehow through events he didn't really understand, but could only link to a certain bouncy brunette and a silver headed kid, he had ended up here with Roxas. The Roxas. The Roxas he had liked since nearly middle school. The day had started off horribly, and if it wasn't for Sora's invitation and Demyx insisting that they go, he would have voted to stay home and hide in his room for the rest of the day.

Now he was sitting in a warm café as snow came down outside with the blond haired boy he had never worked up the courage to ask out. A really odd turn of events for sure.

He swallowed again, trying to get his mouth to work. Roxas was giving him an odd look, and the red head could be pretty sure that he was giving off the deer trapped in the headlights look again.

"Since we're here and all, and neither of us can really leave any time soon, want to consider this a date?"

There, he mentally sighed, it was it out. Now it was up to Roxas to decide, at least he had been able to finally ask it.

There was a minute of silence and Axel was pretty sure that it was going to turn out to be a no. He had held onto the hope that by a slim chance that Roxas would like him back, and now it was looking like it was going to turn out to be nothing after all.

"Yeah, why not?" Roxas asked back. "We are here after all. We might as well make good use of it."

Axel grinned in relief. Roxas saw it and laughed.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing,'' Roxas told him, shaking his head. "I'm just happy that you asked. I should tell you that I wanted to ask, but I felt too nervous to."

"Are you serious? I almost didn't ask you."

Roxas laughed again and the redhead joined in. He had loved the blonde's laugh for years.

"As much as I hate to say this, I'm going to have to thank Leon."

"What?"

Roxas shook his head.

"I'll tell you some other time. It's no big deal, really. What do you want to eat? I'll pay for you."

"I'll pay for you,'' Axel argued. "I was the one that asked you on this date, didn't I?"

"Alright,'' the blond laughed. "But I'm paying on the next one."

Axel was glancing over the menu and looked up suddenly, unsure that he had heard Roxas right.

"The next one?" Axel asked, an eyebrow raised and a grin on his face.

"Yeah. How does tomorrow sound?"

-

"See, I told you everything was just going to be fine. Zexion and Demyx are pretty much glued to each other now. When they're not kissing they're either eating or talking, and they don't even break eye contact for either of them. Roxas and Axel aren't kissing yet, but Yuffie's been sitting by them, and she said that they're already planning another date for tomorrow. You were worried for nothing."

Riku shook his head, having flashbacks to how the morning had started. Particularly the morning car ride and the feeling that he might die before he got to school because of his boyfriend's nerves.

"It still could have gone really wrong, Leon. It's great that it worked out and everything, but you know it could have gone wrong."

"It could have, but it didn't,'' he pointed out with a grin. "It didn't and that's all that matters. If we hadn't done that, those guys would have spent the rest of high school just crushing on each other, and this way they can actually be together. If Zexion and Roxas hadn't done the same for us, we still wouldn't be together. And I love you."

Riku grinned, shaking his head.

"Yeah, you're right. We really do have them to thank, and things could have gone really wrong when they did it too." He tugged Leon down into a kiss. "And I love you too."

"Hey guys!"

Leon and Riku turned around in alarm. Standing behind them was Kairi, grinning at them, a bag at her side.

"Oh hey Kairi,'' Riku said, grinning weakly. From vast experience with her, he was now looking at her warily, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "What's up?"

She held up the bags, grinning. Leon cringed at the sight of the two coats coming out of the bags.

"Run?"

"Run."

-

Axel and Roxas burst out laughing as Riku and Leon sped by, followed closely by a red blur holding two Eskimo style coats.

"They're not going to be able to outrun her,'' Roxas said. "She's gone after me before too. You can't outrun her."

Axel laughed, mentally picturing Roxas in an Eskimo coat.

"She got you too?"

"Yes, and it's not funny, I'll have you know."

"Yes, it is,'' he insisted. "I wish I could have seen it. You must have looked cute in it."

Roxas groaned, trying to hide a blush. Axel saw it anyway and grinned. He reached forward and pulled Roxas's chair closer around the side of the table. The blond gripped the table in alarm and in effort not to fall over. Axel laughed and put an arm around him. Roxas grinned up at him. He let himself lean against the redhead, the grin still staying on his face.

"I didn't look cute,'' Roxas insisted quietly.

"I bet you did."

"No, I didn't. I had an allergic reaction to the dang thing. I couldn't stop sneezing for a half hour. That was not fun."

"But you still would have been cute. You look cute no matter what."

Roxas sighed, deciding to just let Axel go on about it. It had become pretty obvious to him that Axel wasn't going to stop now no matter what he said.

-

The fireworks above them were beautiful. The multicolored flashes lit up the sky. The large group of them sat at the park and watched the fireworks. All of the couples, especially the two new pairs, sat together. Among them were Yuffie, Kairi, Sora, and Cloud. Sora and Cloud were engaged in setting off their own little collection of what Zexion had to guess were illegal fireworks. Yuffie and Kairi were running around with sparklers, and Riku had a theory that one of them was bound to trip pretty soon, and if they were lucky they wouldn't come down on each other.

"So, Leon, are you finally done trying to thank us?" Zexion asked him, reaching for a bottle of water from the basket. He glanced back at Demyx, who smiled at him, buried in an Eskimo coat so he could stay warm. The temperature had come up considerably, but it was still cold enough for thick jackets, or at least for the members of the group that cold easily. "It would be nice, after all."

Leon laughed.

"Whatever are you talking about?"

"No, no, don't try pulling that,'' Roxas called over. "you did it, and you got Sora and Riku in on it."

"And don't forget Yuffie. Yuffie was eating chocolate chip cookies for days after that, and I know it,'' Zexion added. "You got her to do something for you."

Leon laughed and nodded.

"But it all paid off though, so does it really matter?"

"It definitely paid off,'' Axel said to Roxas. "It got us together."

Roxas smiled at him, laying on his back to watch the fireworks. Axel laid beside him on the blanket, grabbing another one in the pile beside him.

"You look cold,'' Axel explained.

"How can you not be?"

Axel laughed, shrugging.

"I don't now, I just don't really get cold."

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"

Axel looked up at them, taking in their beauty.

"Yeah, they are. Pretty fire,'' he said with a mischievous grin.

Roxas looked up at him with an eyebrow raised, the dreamlike smile coming off of his face for a minute.

"Should you come with some sort of fire warning?"

Axel laughed.

"Maybe I should. Still, there's nothing you have to worry about. I haven't set anything on fire recently."

"Encouraging,'' Roxas said, rolling his eyes. "You're definitely worth the risk of fire though."

Axel laughed again, propping himself up on his elbows and kissing Roxas.

"And you're worth the sarcastic remarks."

Farther away from them and closer to Leon and Riku, Demyx and Zexion sat watching the fireworks.

"Happy new year,'' Zexion said, resting his head against Demyx's shoulder. "What's your new year resolution going to be this year?"

Demyx looked at him and laughed, giving him a questioning look.

"Thought you said that making new year resolutions were stupid?" Zexion shrugged in the ways of an answer. "Well, I guess, I'm going to save up for my new electric guitar and get really good at playing it."

"I bet you're going to be just great,'' Zexion told him. "I've seen you play before."

"You have?" Demyx asked in shock.

"Yeah, you had that concert last summer. I made sure that I showed up." He paused for a second. "Want to hear my new year's resolution?"

"You're going to make one? Really?"

"Yes,'' he laughed. "I can make an exception this year, can't I?"

Demyx laughed and nodded.

"I just didn't expect it."

"It's for you,'' he whispered, pulling Demyx into a sweet kiss.

Riku looked around them, shaking his head. Leon looked too, grinning.

"Look at what you started,'' Riku laughed. "Feeling better?"

Leon nodded, putting an arm around Riku's waist.

"Yes, I am. Are you ready for a new year?"

"You don't have anybody else to thank, do you?"

"No, I don't. You can relax."

"Good. Promise me that you're not going to pull anything like this for at least another month?"

"Promise, or I can try."

Riku regarded him with a raised eyebrow.

"So here's to a new year, and everything that it's going to bring," he said, kissing the brunette.

Somewhere behind them Riku heard Sora and Yuffie shouting that they were going to run to the truck and get the rest of the fireworks.

It certainly looked like it was going to be an interesting new year at least.

**So, how do we like? Again, several references to my life at my high school. Like the parking lot when Leon's parking the car. The school won't plow it for some stupid reason, so for the people that drive, it's like a big guessing game. Axel's horrible day was based off of mine when I first started writing the chapter/ The hallways and the school getting remolded. Yay for graduating before that mess lol**

**But yeah, please do me a favor and review! Make an author happy, okay? And challenges are open! Till next time, though hopefully a much shorter wait this time around.**


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